Consular births.....

[robineaston]

Hello

I'm planning to order copies of my relatives' birth certs, but they were born overseas. There are indices for consular birth in the 1837online.com website. What do you think, is it very likely that my greatgrandparents registered their childrens' births at a consulate in Finland? These children were born 1910-1921. As Presbyterians the family didn't belong to any Finnish parish.

Robin

[Thrall]

Hi Robin, for what it´s worth, I only registered my children because I thought it in their best interests, and probably the same goes for most parents. My own ancestors however seem never to have come near a consulate or embassy if it could be avoided so no BMDs registered at all. Others did, so perhaps fifty-fifty.....

Perhaps sometimes a question of social status.....

Good hunting,

Thrall

[DavidWW]

Hi Robin

Hyvä iltaa!

I'd say only likely. There was no compulsion to go through the process of consular registration.

But there should still be Finnish civil registration douments. As you are probably aware civil registration was handled on behalf of the state until quite recently, and such records, quite distinct from Lutheran and other church registers, started between 1650 and 1700 and are are termed the Lutheran Main Books - Luterilaisen Kirkon Pääkirjat. They are only open to 1850. Entries since then can be inspected only by special permission on application to the The National Archives (Valtionarkisto), PL 258, 00171 Helsinki. Genealogical research is an acceptable, valid reason.

(Lutheran, Catholic and Orthodox church records from 1860 onwards are still with the individual churches, apart from those for the "Lost Territories" which are held at a special archive in Mikkeli.)

Before you spend money at 1837online.com check that their indexes include the records held in Edinburgh of Consular returns from 1914 onwards. Earlier records might be in the Edinburgh Register of Births in Foreign Countries 1860 - 1965.

In both cases the records from overseas would first be processed by the Registrar General in London. Where births clearly involved Scottish parents the records were then transferred to the Registrar General for Scotland. I'm not clear if a copy remained with the RG in London.

The relevant legislation is

The Consular Marriage Act 1849 established that appropriately accredited British consular marriage officers could register the marriage of a British citizen outside of the United Kingdom. The Act provided that two duplicate registers were to be completed by the consul to record the event. Annual returns (or nil returns) of marriages were to be made to the Registrar General by each consular marriage officer, and when the registers were full, one of the duplicates was to be transmitted to the Registrar General. All subsequent legislation covering consular marriages has included equivalent provisions.

David

Koti ei ole koti ilman saunaa.

[Thrall]

David,

DKoti ei ole koti ilman saunaa.

Kiitoksia paljon

Thrall

[robineaston]

Hyvää huomenta David ja muut!

I've researched a lot at the National Archives of Finland because of my Finnish ancestors, but the building doesn't hold much material for the part of the country that was lost in the war of 1939-1940 to Russia. And my family lived in that part. The archives of the town of Viipuri are held at the Archives of Mikkeli. Viipuri records are incomplete, and only documents that I've been able to locate at Mikkeli were a couple of residence visas of my great grandpa from the 1930s. One series there, census records or henkikirjat, may be the only chance to find something on them. Otherwise I have to visit the town archive, which belongs to Russia at present

Robin

Kodissani ei ole saunaa.

[DavidWW]

Hyvää huomenta David ja muut!

I've researched a lot at the National Archives of Finland because of my Finnish ancestors, but the building doesn't hold much material for the part of the country that was lost in the war of 1939-1940 to Russia. And my family lived in that part. The archives of the town of Viipuri are held at the Archives of Mikkeli. Viipuri records are incomplete, and only documents that I've been able to locate at Mikkeli were a couple of residence visas of my great grandpa from the 1930s. One series there, census records or henkikirjat, may be the only chance to find something on them. Otherwise I have to visit the town archive, which belongs to Russia at present

Robin

Kodissani ei ole saunaa.

Hi Robin

And we think we have problems researching in Scotland At least most of us don't go back to the point where war ravaged the locations where our ancestors lived.

(For anyone following this thread who doesn't realise what I'm havering about, Finland lost permanently to the Soviet Union after WW11 a large chunk of SE Finland, - sometimes now called Russian Karelia. My former Finnish father-in-law had the experience of retreating through his home village of Muolaa near Viipuri and implementing Mannerheim's burnt earth policy!! His later, third wife was inside Leningrad while he was outside as part of the German/Finnish besieging forces..... )

It looks like it the Consular records for you !!

The really frustrating thing from the residence permits is that they were "legal" so that there must have been entries in Luterilaisen Kirkon Pääkirjat in Viipuri. Is anything known about the extent to which the locally based Viipuri records survived the Winter War and The Continuation War, never mind the decades of Soviet government?

Given the close contact with the region I'd have expected National Archives to have investigated the possibility of getting copies of missing material from Viipuri and elsewhere following the breakup of the Soviet Union?

David

[robineaston]

Hi David

Nice to hear of your Finnish connection.

I've squeezed everything off the National Archives. The police archive of Viipuri is incomplete. The rest are still in Viipuri You won't get anything like photocopies from a Russian archive in a short term. A Finnish site has published a list of the archival material still in Viipuri and a guide as to how access them.

The Lutheran parish records for Viipuri are available at the National Archives up to 1900. The later ones are held in Mikkeli. However, parishes are not likely to have recorded non-Lutherans. But there is one source for the non Lutherans: census records, which are practically same as civil registration - I haven't researched them yet since they must be a great mass of lists and far away in Mikkeli.

My great parents on the other side were on the German side of Leningrad blockade east of the city while the others were in England/Scotland, some in Finland. My Scottish great grandparents left Karelia in September 1939 for Scotland.

I've got all the dates and much biographical information for my grandparents, but I try to find certs to get certain facts about great grandpa as a businessman etc. Unfortunately numerous business archives have been lost, since it wasn't compulsory to preserve the old records for more than 5 years.

Robin

[DavidWW]

Hi Robin

My "bible" in terms of European records outside the UK is Angus Baxter's "In Search of Your European Roots".

For Finland he draws a clear distinction between the Lutheran Registers for parishioners, - Luterilaisen Kirkon Historialliset Aikakirjat, - and the records maintained by the Lutheran Church on behalf of the state for those who weren't church members, - the Lutheran Main Books, - Luterilaisen Kirkon Pääkirjat.

Has Angus got this right?

As someone who is deeply interested in Scots in Europe, what sort of business was your great-grandfather involved in?

I won't bore others here by going off into a listing of Scottish influence in Suomi/Finland, except to mention the biggest clothing company, - Finlayson, - and that Scots played major roles in the formation of at least two major pulp/paper companies ...................

I only wish that my Finnish was as good as your faultless English !

David

[robineaston]

Hi

I have never encountered records called "kirkon pääkirjat", but I guess they are same as BDMs and "communion books". Communion books list everyone present at communion, sorted by village, including birth & death dates and places - the real jewel of Finnish genealogical records.

I looked at the list of the records of the Parishes of Viipuri (three ones existed there - Finnish, Swedish and German). There is no mention of any civil registration-like series Just BDMs, communion books, parochial accounts, records of moves, lists of children who got their first communion and estate inventory deeds.

Everyone interested in Finnish church records, check the following link - most of the Finnish BDMs prior to ca. 1850 transcribed: http://www.genealogia.fi/hiski?en

Yes, a great bunch of Scots have arrived here, but few Finns are aware of that and Scotland appers to be like an exotic, distant country for them! By the way, Marshall Mannerheim had a little amount of Scottish blood running in his veins - Forbesses from Aberdeenshire, of which a couple of branches ended up here.

My great grandpa George W. Easton from Bo'ness was involved in timber trade (pit props first, later birch for Singer sewing machines), from Finland to Scotland. And so was his family; his father did the same business and sent his younger son here to learn the timber trade. The father had respectively learnt it as a teenager in Sweden. That's enough of George, I could continue the story more and more...

Well, I've grown up speaking Finnish and learnt English not most at the school, but surfing on the net and doing genealogy.

Have you already visited the SSNE website? http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/ssne/ - a historical database of Scots in Northern Europe.

Robin

[DavidWW]

.....much snipped............

Have you already visited the SSNE website? http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/ssne/ - a historical database of Scots in Northern Europe.

Robin

Hi Robin

Thanks for that.

I was in contact with Steve Murdoch a few years ago when he was at Aberdeen University, but lost contact.

Great to find him and Alexia again !

David