Membership excursion to the town of Hangö

The Emigrant Institute is planning a trip to Hangö in order to visit the exhibition called "Hangö - Concord USA - Petroskoj - Helsingfors" there shown May 8th - Aug. 3rd, 2003 (see www.hango.fi ; kkultur och fritid ; Hangö museum) and to participate in a guided cultural walk visiting the Emigrant hotel, the Emigrant Office and the pier from which the ships of the Finnish Steamship Company left for Hull in England carrying a cargo of butter, and emigrants.
The exhibition highlights a Finnish family's life story from the 1880's, about the stonecarver Antti Rimpilä who came to Hangö in 1887 from Sotkamo together with his wife Anna and their children in order to emigrate to the USA. But in Hangö Antti was offered a job at the Granit Co. and the family decided to stay and not to emigrate. However in time six of the couples nine children did emigrate to the USA, the sons Viktor and Axel became professional stone cutters and both also became ardent socialists while their two sisters Amanda and Anna kept their strong childhood faith.
Viktor had participated in the great general strike in Hangö when he was 18 years old before he emigrated to Concord, NH, in the USA. In 1916 he became a USA citizen but when the "October Revolution" broke out in 1917, he took his wife to be Olga Kuitunen from Viborg, with him and went to Karelia in order to establish the Socialistic system there. His brother Axel followed him but was executed in 1938 by the Stalin regime.

The Emigrants' Day

The celebration of the Emigrants' Day will this year be held on Sunday June 29th at 2 p.m. in the Önningeby Museum in Önningeby, Jomala. The program includes a lecture by Kjell Ekström about the artist Thure Bengtz from Jomala who emigrated to the USA where he became a professor in the arts. We will also be visiting the Sjöblom crofter's cottage, the small nearby museum, from where the only son emigrated to the USA in 1909 and never returned again. Coffee will be served and all are very welcome!

The annual meeting of the Åland Islands' Emigrant Institute 27th of april 2003

The annual meeting of the Åland Islands' Emigrant Institute was held on Apr. 27th at 2 p.m. in the film hall of the Åland Museum. Our president Erik Lindholm was unanimously re-elected for another term.

The Annual Meeting is taking place on April 27th 2003 at 2 p.m.
The Annual Meeting is taking place on April 27th 2003 at 2 p.m. in the movieroom in the Åland museum.
Agenda:
Mandatory items according to the rules of the Åland Islands' Emigrant Institute.
Some addional programme is under planning.

A Nordic Genealogy Conference in Mariehamn 26th - 27th of April
A Nordic Genealogy Conference is arranged in Mariehamn on 26th and 27th of April 2003. The arrangement is part of a Nordgen co-operation.

Scheduled talks until now :
Bjøn Strøm : Konsekvenser av multimedia og beslektet teknologi for slektforskning
Håkan Skogsjö : Sockenböcker på Åland
Jo Rune Ugelen : Finske krigsfanger i Bergenområdet vid Stora nordiske krig
Charlotte Jensen : Över-Öresund-hemsida för personforskning över Öresund
Birgit Flemming-Larsen : Oversekte kilder i jagten på udvandrede slægtinge

There will also be displays arranged by participating organisations.

More information may be obtained from "Nordisk genealogisk samarbeidskomité".

2003-04-16 "Emigrant Evening" in Eckerö Postal- and Customs-house on April 16th, 19 p.m.

Angenda:

Lisbeth Bergman tells about the Folk dancers journey to USA
Birgitta Andersson tells about how her American kins were discovered
Ramona Eckerman plays the Flute
Film from 1958-60 about emigrants in New York

Coffee with buns!

The exhibition is open tonight for visitors 6-7 p.m.

Arraned by: Eckerö Postal- and Customs-house & The Aland Islands´ Emigrant Institute

On April the 2nd 2003 the Emigrant exhibition opens in Eckerö Post- and Customs-house

On April the 2nd 2003 the exhibition of the screens "Scandinavian Roots - American Lives" opens in Eckerö
Post- and Customs-house.
The exhibition has a domestic contribution with screens about emigrants from Eckerö.
Also letters recieved from emigrants overseas are at display.
The Exhibition is situated in the the Northern wing of the Postal- and Customs-house
close by the Postoffice and is open during the month of April.


Arranged by:
Eckerö Postal- and Customs-house
Northern Institute on Aland Islands
The Aland Islands´ Emigrant Institute

March 24th at 8 p.m.- "Emigrant Evening" at the Godby Library

On Monday 24th of March an "Emigrant evening" is arranged at the Godby Library in the Community of Finström.

Items on the programme (in Swedish):

Eva Meyer relates on returning emigrants
Poem recitation by Karin Sandell-Karlsson
Birgitta Eklund och Rainer Kronstam tells about emigrant adventures
Karl-Börje Lund performs the Emigrantvalz
A film from 1958-60 about emigrants in New York

Coffee with buns!

Warm welcome!

Emigrant exhibition in Godby, in the community of Finström
On February the 20th 2003 the exhibition of the screens "Scandinavian Roots - American Lives" was opened in the Godby Library. The exhibition is dedicated to the community of Finström but has to some extent connection to the communities of
Saltvik and Geta. The Alandic Islands' passport lists from 1860 - 1903 and 1916 are available for studies as well as the first list of members of the Society Åland, New York.
The Exhibition Catalog is available free of charge from the Library.

The Library opening hours : Mondays from 3 p.m. till 8 p.m.
Tuesday thru Wednesday from 11 a.m. till 3 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. till 8 p.m.
Thursdays from 11 a.m. till 8 p.m.

More details will be given later on!

January 29th 2003, at 7 p.m., an "Emigrant Evening" will be arranged at the Föglö library.
The programme will be as follows :
- First Eva Meyer, the coordinator at The Åland Islands' Emigrant Institute,
will tell about the emigration and the return migration.
- Marlene Sjöblom, the former librarian of the Föglö library, will tell
about emigrants she has run across during her research work.
- Charles Hemmingson will sing, accompanied by the church musician Carl-Micael Dan
of the parish of Hammarland.
Charles Hemmingson himself was born in the USA as the son of Ålandic emigrants that later returned
to the Åland Islands.
- A film will be shown with emigrants from the county of Föglö in New York in the years 1958-1962.
The emigrants are from the villages of Bråttö, Hummersö, Björsboda, Granboda, Jyddö, Skogboda, Sommarö and Hastersboda.
The Föglö emigrant Hjördis Sundblom was operating the camera.

December 12th 2002, at 6 p.m., there will be the opening of an exhibition in Föglö.
In the library of the community of Föglö, to the south of the main Åland Island, the screens "Scandinavian Roots - American Lives" will be exhibited till February 12th 2003, along with an exhibition about some emigrants from Föglö. The community saw many of its young people leave for America, and so did the future fathers of two emigrant descendants that became very famous in the USA. It is of course Haddon Sundblom, the creator of the marvellous Santa Claus, the advertisment for the Coca-Cola Co. and Warner Sallman, the painter of the world famous picture of Christ, that are referred to.

December 2nd 2002 Prof. Olavi Koivukangas,
the director of The Migration Institute in Åbo (Turku) will visit The Åland Islands' Emigrant Institute
He will give a lecture at The Åland Maritime Museum about the emigration to Australia and New Zealand from Finland. For many of us this emigration is much less known as the one to the USA.
Olavi Koivukangas is one of the leading experts on this subject. Already in 1968 he went to Australia for a couple of years to do research work and to interview emigrants and their descendants. His doctor's thesis was also on the Australian emigration. Later on he also passed one year in New Zealand doing research work there as well. As a result of this Olavi Koivukangas has also published quite many books, many of which have in fact been published in English.

Sunday October 6th 2002, at 2 p.m. Marketta Wall from the Hangö Museum
will give a lecture about the town of Hangö as the port of emigration
The small town of Hangö in the peninsula in the southwestern corner of the Finnish mainland was the place to see most of the emigrants from Finland leave the country on their journey across the Atlantic.
Many of them can be found in the Emigrant Register at www.migrationinstitute.fi .

The opening of the exhibition "Scandinavian Roots - American Lives"
will take place on Sept 17th 2002 at The Åland Museum.
For those who are curious about the exhibition, please, visit the web page : www.migrationinstitute.fi/nordic .

The Annual Meeting was held April 28th 2002.
A new president was elected!
Our former president Göte Sundberg was succeeded by the member of the committee Erik Lindholm.
Two years of the committee´s commission is left.

Other members of the committee are :
Birgitta Andesson, Bjarne Henriksson, Peter Karlsson (treasurer),
Sol-Britt Kärkkäinen, Bertil Lindqvist (vice-chairman), Leena Raitanen,
Göte Sundberg and Hjördis Sundblom.

We want to thank Göte Sundberg for his great efforts all through the years!
And we wish Erik Lindholm good luck!