Niskanen Family research

Anyone having Niskanen name in relatives, ancestors or familiar people?

I am researching Niskanen surname.

I wish to be able to find descendants for

Johan / Juho NISKANEN b. 22.3.1853 (22 March 1853). I have knowledge about his early doings , but after about 1900 there is different online versions about his descebdants. Those born before about 1900 I can ensure and correct here at Finland.

With best regards.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Dunham on March 12, 2013 at 12:03pm

Juho (John) Niskanen died 2 June 1920 in Greenwood, Oxford County, Maine, aged 67 years, 2 months, 10 days. He is buried in the Finnish Cemetery in West Paris, Maine. He arrived in the United States on 1 January 1914 with his second wife, Anna Wappu Kyllönen, and their youngest daughter Saimi. Anna returned to Finland after her husband's death.

As far as I know, Juho had five children with his first wife and three more with his second wife, all born in Kuhmo. Six of these children came to live in Maine. I assume that you have all the birth and baptism dates for these children.

1. Matti Niskanen died 8 March 1947 in Lewiston, Androscoggin County, Maine. He arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, aboard the Columbus on 7 November 1903. He had been married before in Finland, but I'm not sure of his first wife's name. He married second, 22 April 1911 in West Paris, Maine, Elsa Vilia Määttä. Matti changed his name to "Matti Matson." I believe that he had at least one child with his first wife, five more with his second. Here is his obituary from the Lewiston Daily Sun of 9 March 1947:

2. Kalle Pekka Niskanen changed his last name to "Linti." He emigrated in 1903, and died 24 May 1929 in Rumford, Oxford County, Maine, having been run over by a tractor a week before. He married Reeta "Greta" Gustava Heikkinen. They had seven children.

3. Juho Heikki (John Henry) Niskanen arrived in Boston aboard the Ivernia on 27 July 1905. He died 13 July 1930 in Lewiston, Maine. His first wife was Greeta Maria Korhonen, and his second was Marcia M. Hopkins. He and his son Carl were shot by a man named Charles Gauthier the day before his death. He had three children with his first wife, nine more with his second wife.

4. Esko Niskanen died 9 December 1948. He married 26 July 1913 in West Paris, Maine, Greeta Kustaava Määttä, who was a sister to his brother Matti's wife. I believe that he came over from Finland in 1906. He had five children.

5. Elsa Kaisa Niskanen died 6 December 1976. She married 20 September 1915 in West Paris, Maine, Kalle Vihtori Piirainen. She arrived in the United States aboard the Arabic in 1914. They had three children.

6. Iita Mari Niskanen remained in Finland and married a Karppinen.

7. Anna Lyyti Niskanen remained in Finland and married a Heikkinen.

8. Saimi Fredrika Niskanen died 7 March 1978 in Norway, Oxford County, Maine. She married first, 26 April 1918 in West Paris, Pekka (Peter) Peiju. They had four children. She married second, September 1961, Adam E. Mannisto.

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Permalink Reply by Markus Kemppainen on March 15, 2013 at 1:57pm

Thank you very much! With this information i yet once more checked my sources and documents, made careful additional research and here is as far as I can reach (for now, see notes below the following list):

Johan (=Juho, "Jussi") NISKANEN, born 22.3.1853 Kuhmo, christened 29.5.1853 Hyrynsalmi

1. marriage: 10.1.1875 Kuhmo with Anna Pulkkinen, born 16.11.1851 Kuhmo, christened 7.12.1851 Kuhmo, died 2.6.1894 Kuhmo, buried __________

1. Matts (=Matti) NISKANEN, born 14.11.1878 Kuhmo, christened 15.12.1878]

2. Kalle Petter (=Kalle Pekka) NISKANEN, born 23.3.1881 Suomussalmi, christened _________

3. Juho Heikki NISKANEN, born 14.11.1883 Kuhmo, christened 16.12.1883.

4. Esko NISKANEN, born 7.8.1887 Kuhmo, christened 28.8.1887

5. Elsa Kaisa, born 19.1.1891 Kuhmo, christened 8.2.1891]

(Now Anna Pulkkinen dies 2.6.1894 at Kuhmo)

2. marriage: 19.1.1895 Kuhmo with Anna Valborg (=Anna Vappu) KYLLÖNEN, born 17.5.1856 Kuhmo, christened ____________

6. Iita Mari NISKANEN, born 8.8.1895 Kuhmo, christened 21.9.1895

7. Anna Lyyti NISKANEN, born 4.10.1897 Kuhmo, christened 23.10.1897

8. Saimi Retriika NISKANEN, born 21.6.1899 Kuhmo, christened 29.6.1899

---------------------NOTES-------------------------

#1 Name: First name as in birth records if there is christening date mentioned after birth date. Otherwise the First name is as it reads in oldest document available (usually Communion books).

For example, Juho NISKANEN (born 1853), the name is "Johan". In my notes I use the oldest possible information for the person found. The name "Johan" is Swedish version to name Juho, Jussi or similars. All the communion books to the late 1800 -century were in Swedish, only couple of tens of years of last 1800's may be in Finnish. Swedish language was official church language in these books until later years.

Later versions, usually when the communion books are in Finnish, the first name may appear changed from Swedish "Johan" to Finnish "Juho" or from Swedish "Matts" to Finnish "Matti". For oldest Juho there stood in some documents "Jussi", which may be more like nickname in this case (just a guess).

#2. Birth date is from Birth records (as are the first names, like mentioned), but only IF there is a christening date revealed after birth date. If there stands "______________" as christening date, the Birth records cannot be found. Then the birth date is as it is mentioned in oldest document available.

#3 My research is under continuous work.

#4 Now I keep a small pause, then continue. Posting this message before any accident may happen... TO BE CONTINUED

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Permalink Reply by Markus Kemppainen on March 15, 2013 at 11:09pm

How am I connected to Juho NISKANEN 22.3.1853:

Juho was a brother of my mfmm, who was a brother to Brita Kaisa NISKANEN, born 25.1.1869 Kuhmo, christened 28.2.1869 Kuhmo. Their parents were Matts (Matti) NISKANEN and Anna HEIKKINEN.

About my previous post, I have more detailed information, but because it is still under work, some fine tuning and extra checks are needed. I have mapped also Juho's (and Brita Kaisa's) ancestors few generations back and as well from there backwards. Many, many things to do yet and it takes its own time. What I have read from many second hand sources, there can be found many mistakes, like in genealogy related books. Of course they are great help, but mistakes like wrong connections does not much inspire... Well, that is sort understandable, because usually there were used same first names between generations. It was very usual that someone of the boys, often oldest one, got his father's name.

Also, there exists some case on early 1730's (if I remember correctly), that there was born 2 persons on the SAME day, SAME village and the name was also exactly the SAME. In some genealogy books, where someone of them exists, the wrong connection have been made. That tells me only that research have not been done carefully, the way that you know every year, where the person have lived. To ensure avoiding mistakes as much as is possible, every step from the person's birth records to person's burial records, if available, have to go through. It is very time consuming through and often happens that person disappears somewhere completely, because all the old documents have not survived to these days.

---------CORRECTIONS--------------

Chris, as you can see from my previous post, Juho's second child, Kalle Pekka, was not born at the Kuhmo. On only few years the family of Juho lived here at Suomussalmi, actually the residence was actually very near of my home, about 6 kilometers away only.

-----------------------------------------------

Continuing research. I have rough mapped Juho's and his 6 children's travel from Finland, but not been able to reach original, of digitized documents, so I cannot quarantee second hand errors. Might post that information on the next time.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Dunham on March 15, 2013 at 11:53pm

Yes, you are correct that Kalle was born in Suomussalmi. Thank you for the additional information on the family.

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Permalink Reply by Markus Kemppainen on March 17, 2013 at 11:39pm

Here comes more:

I tried to find best matching info from databases, could these informations be correct?
-----------------SCETCH AND GUESSES-------------
Sort of "sketch" of Juho's and Anna's children's travel from Finland to USA, date (ship)

1   NISKANEN Matti
From Hanko 21.10.1903 (Polaris)
From England 29.10.1903 (Columbus)
To W. Paris, ME

2.   NISKANEN Kalle
From Hanko 18.3.1903 (Arcturus)
From England 24.3.1903 (Saxonia)
To Rockland, ME

3.   NISKANEN Heikki
From Hanko 12.7.1905 (Polaris)
From England 18.7.1905 (Ivernia)
To Boston, MA

4.   NISKANEN Erkki
From Hanko 28.11.1906 (Arcturus)
From England 8.12.1906 (Lucania)
To W. Paris, ME

5.   NISKANEN Elsa Kaisa
From Hanko 27.5.1914 (Arcturus)
From England 2.6.1914 (Arabic)
To W. Paris, ME

8.   NISKANEN Saimi (and parents Juho and Anna W.)
From Hanko 24.12.1913 (Titania)
From England 1.1.1914 (Andania)
To W. Paris, ME

#3.   Thre stands Heikki, but may mean Juho Heikki.

#4.   I think this might mean Esko anyway?

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Permalink Reply by Chris Dunham on March 18, 2013 at 12:31am

I believe that all of these are correct, except for "Erkki." I believe this Erkki Niskanen was the son of Juho Heikki and Reeta Stiina (Pulkkinen) Niskanen, born 4 Nov. 1883 in Kuhmo, who came to West Paris, and died here in 1970.

Esko Niskanen sailed from Liverpool, England, aboard the S.S. Tunisian 22 Feb. 1906, arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, on 3 Mar. 1906. He crossed the border into the United States in northern Vermont. Here is the passenger manifest (Esko is on line 29):

http://archive.org/stream/manifestofpassen0035unit#page/n29/mode/1up

A passenger train ran daily from Canada through northern Vermont and West Paris, and many immigrants to Maine from Canada arrived by that route.

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Permalink Reply by Markus Kemppainen 12 hours ago

Thank you for correction. As a bit of research, I think you are right. There seems to be also two passengers targeting to West Paris with Erkki, here all of three with line numbers

28 Elsa M Heikkinen, age 24, birth year about 1906-24=1882
29 Esko Niskanen, age 19, birth year about 1906-19=1887
30 Kalle Heikkinen, age 27, birth year about 1906-27=1879

Because Heikkinen's are strongly connected to Niskanen, I became interested to Elsa M and Kalle. I could assume that they are somehow connected to Esko. So here goes:

Elsa and Kalle might be siblings and they might be from near Esko's whereabouts.

I found a well fitting pair of siblings:
Kalle Heikki b. 19.11.1877 and Elsa Maria 21.2.1882 from Kuhmo Lentiira 18 Sääskenniemi.

Juho Niskanen, Esko's father, have been at Sääskenniemi on years 1900 and 1901, so then Elsa and Kalle have to know Esko.

Kalle's and Elsa's parents were Renne HEIKKINEN (born 31 March 1847) and Elli Matleena NISKANEN (born 24 March 1854). So their mother is also a Niskanen.

Relationship to Esko I have not yet examined, but I bet it may be found quite easily. There is still many, many things to examine and I try to document every detail.

As I mentioned, Juho Niskanen (born 1853), Esko's father have been at Sääskenniemi on years 1900-1901, but he have lived in many other places too. I have spent hours and hours to try to track his movements and there is no many holes anymore. Mainly he have lived at Northern Kuhmo, but couple of years also at Suomussalmi here near of my home. The locations I have tracked quite well, I think.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Dunham 12 hours ago

According to my research, your conclusions about the Heikkinen siblings are correct. The mother, Elsa Matleena (Niskanen) Heikkinen, came to the United States aboard the Arcturus, arriving at Ellis Island 13 Dec. 1909. She lived in my hometown of Greenwood, Maine, and died there 6 Dec. 1936. Here's a link to her obituary.