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Finland Emigration and Immigration

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Resources

Online Resources

  • 1874-1939 Emigrantlistor, 1874-1939(*) at FamilySearch Catalog - images; index and emigration lists of persons from Sweden and Finland who emigrated via the port of Malmö
*Passenger lists of immigrants leaving Germany and other European ports and airports; the majority of the immigrants listed in this collection are displaced persons - Holocaust survivors, former concentration camp inmates and Nazi forced laborers, as well as refugees from Central and Eastern European countries and some non-European countries

Passport Records

Offices to Contact

Siirtolaisuusinstituutti (Migration Institute)
Eerikinkatu 34
20100 Turku
Finland
Telephone: Emigrant Register: 011-358-2-284-0471
Fax: 011-358-2-233 3460

The Library of the Migration Institute has more than 8,000 cataloged publications related to migration and ethnicity. In addition to books, the collections include periodicals published by expatriate Finns around the world, periodicals on migration or migration in general, and a large number of small prints. The library also has fiction and genealogy publications written by Finns abroad. An increasing proportion of new material deals with immigration.
The library serves as a source of information for the Institute's own researchers and assists in obtaining information on the institute's various activities. The library is also open to outsiders and the IT specialist guides you in information retrieval if necessary.

Background

Emigration means moving out of a country. Immigration means moving into a country. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, significant waves of Finns emigrated to countries such as the United States, Canada, and Australia, seeking better economic opportunities and escaping political oppression under Russian rule. This period of emigration was particularly pronounced in the late 19th century, with over 300,000 Finns leaving their homeland.

In the mid-20th century, Finland experienced a new wave of emigration, primarily to neighboring Sweden, driven by economic disparities and the desire for higher living standards. However, since the 1990s, Finland has also witnessed a growing influx of immigrants, primarily from countries such as Russia, Estonia, Somalia, and Iraq. This shift in immigration patterns reflects Finland's evolving economic and social landscape, as well as its growing integration into the global community.[1][2][3][4]

*Contents: I. Migrant Karelians living in the territory of Western Finland. - II. Migrant Karelians living on the south coast. - III. Covers a narrow strip from the height of Lahti to the eastern border. - IV. The rest of Finland. - (Index) Migrant Karelian Road: Address Directory.

Immigration

After World War I, about 30,000 Russian subjects immigrated to Finland, many of whom were Karelian or Finnish. The Great Depression of the 1930s in the U.S. led to the emigration of many Finns from Canada. Many recent immigrants choose to leave for the United States or Finland instead of living in poverty in Canada. In addition, more than 2,000 Canadians of Finnish origin moved to Soviet Karelia between 1930 and 1935. In World War II, Finland lost its eastern regions (Karelia) to the Soviet Union. Nearly half a million people were evacuated from the areas.

In 2018, 387,215 people in Finland were born in another country, representing 7% of the population. The 10 largest foreign born groups are (in order) from Russia, Estonia, Sweden, Iraq, Somalia, China, Thailand, Serbia, Vietnam and Türkiye. As of 2019, there were 423,494 people with a foreign background living in Finland (7.7% of the population), most of whom are from the former Soviet Union, Estonia, Somalia, Iraq and former Yugoslavia.[5]

See Immigration to Finland at Wikipedia for more information.

Emigration

Information Recorded in the Records

Emigration and immigration sources list the names of people leaving (emigrating) or coming into (immigrating) a country. For Finland, emigration information is usually found in passport records and passenger lists. The information in these records generally includes the emigrants’ names, ages, occupations, and destinations and their places of origin.

  • Police Department Emigration Lists: specific registrations of persons emigrating to various countries, especially the United States of America listing names, ages, places of birth, destinations and dates of debarkation.
  • Port Emigration Lists: list the persons name, age, place they resided at time for emigration, and when known, place of destination, and date of departure.
  • Finland Steamship Company Records: include information on emigrant's age, port of departure and place of destination
  • Finnish Passport Lists: the primary source for obtaining the immigrants’ places of origin. The lists began around 1820 and are available on microfilm through 1920. The early lists are not as informative as the ones from the mid 1800's on. These lists record the passport recipients in chronological order and contain: names, occupations, home parishes, destination countries, and the number of children included in the passport. Immigrants could receive a passport in any county. Many received them in the county from which they embarked, not from their home county.

Destination Countries

Australia

*Includes Database of Australian Finns (3,800 records); contains information on Finns who lived in Australia before the Second World War. It is based on a file compiled by Olavi Koivukangas, Director of the Migration Institute, for his research on Australian Finns in Australia. It also includes some information extracted from Finnish passport and passenger lists.

The first group of Finnish immigrants who arrived in Australia came to work in the gold mines of Victoria in the 1850s. Many Finnish immigrants began arriving in Australia between 1947 and 1971. When these new immigrants came to Australia, they were taken to refugee camps and given free room and board until the head of the family was assigned his first job. The largest and best-known of these camps was Bonegilla. Most of these Finns began their new lives in Bonegilla during this period.
Finns were particularly attracted by the income from the sugar cane fields and mining in Mount Isa, in north Queensland. As a result, Mount Isa has one of the largest Finnish communities in Australia.[6]

Canada

It is difficult to determine the exact date of arrival of the first Finnish settler in Canada. However, Finns began to settle in large numbers in the 1880s. During this period, several Finns who had arrived in the United States in the 1860s crossed the border into Canada. By 1890, several communities of Canadians of Finnish origin had formed. The largest of these communities were Nanaimo (British Columbia), New Finland (Saskatchewan), Port Arthur, Toronto and Sault Ste-Marie (Ontario). Many of these early settlers were pious individuals and therefore churches of various denominations played an important role in cultural and social regrouping.

The first great wave of Finnish immigration to Canada occurred in the early 20th century, just before the First World War. Approximately one third of all Finnish immigrants to Canada arrived between 1900 and 1914. A civil war broke out in Finland during World War I and one faction received support from Germany to defeat the other. As a result, the Government of Canada declared Finland an “enemy country”.
It was not until the end of the war that Finnish immigration to Canada resumed. During this period in the United States, quotas were put in place for immigration from Finland; as a result, many Finns choose to settle in Canada. The number of Finnish speaking Swedish also increased during this same period. During World War II, Finland was once again declared an enemy country due to its participation with Germany in an attack on the Soviet Union. This declaration was repealed after the end of the war. The last great wave of immigration from Finland to Canada took place between 1948 and 1961. Since then, Finnish immigration has declined significantly.[7]

Norway

Many Finns moved to northern and east-central Norway. From Norway, many of them have immigrated to the United States. However, some Finnish people emigrated through Norwegian ports. Finns also traveled through the ports of other countries, primarily Göteborg, Malmö, and Stockholm in Sweden, and Trondheim in Norway.

Russia

Russia, especially its former capital, St. Petersburg, was a destination for Finnish laborers, officials, and military personnel serving both the Russian Empire and the Grand Duchy of Finland. At the turn of the century, 36,000 Finns lived in Russia, and 83 percent of them were in the St. Petersburg region.

Finnish Russians and Russian Finns

Russians in Finland or Russian Finns constitute a linguistic and ethnic minority in Finland. About 30,000 people have citizenship of the Russian Federation, and Russian is the mother language of about 70,000 people in Finland, which represents about 1.3% of the population.

The first migratory wave of Russians began in the early 18th century, when Finland was part of the Swedish Empire. About 40,000 Russian soldiers, civilian workers, and about 600 businessmen moved to the Grand Duchy of Finland, which became part of the Russian Empire in 1809. When Finland became independent in 1917, many soldiers returned to Russia. Many businessmen stayed. During the Russian Revolution many aristocrats and officers fled to Finland as refugees.

The biggest refugee wave was in 1922 when about 33,500 people came to Finland. During the Kronstadt Rebellion (1921), about 1,600 officers fled to Finland. Russian citizens who moved in these three waves are called "Old Russians", whose 3,000–5,000 descendants live in Finland today. During World War II, there were about 69,700 Soviet prisoners of war in Finland, and 200–300 children were born to them and Finnish women.

A second major wave of immigration occurred after the fall of the Soviet Union. Many Russian guest workers came to Finland, working low-paying jobs. In the 1990s, immigration to Finland grew, and a Russian-speaking population descended from Ingrian Finns immigrated to Finland. Ingrian Finns are the Finnish population of Ingria (now the central part of Leningrad Oblast in Russia, descending from Lutheran Finnish immigrants introduced into the area in the 17th century, when Finland and Ingria were both parts of the Swedish Empire. In the 2000s, many nouveaux riches Russians have bought estates in Eastern Finland.[8]

Sweden

Throughout the years, many Finns, including colonists, refugees, and laborers, have immigrated to Sweden. Many Swedes, especially during the Swedish Era, have emigrated to Finland as well. Some localities in northern and central Sweden have had a Finnish population for several centuries. Since World War II, about half a million Finns have moved to Sweden. Finns also traveled through the ports of other countries, primarily Göteborg, Malmö, and Stockholm in Sweden.

In the 1940s, 70,000 young Finnish children were evacuated from Finland. Most of them came to Sweden during the Winter War and the Continuation War, and around 20% remained after the war. Helped by the Nordic Passport Union, Finnish immigration to Sweden was considerable during the 1950s and 1960s.

The city of Eskilstuna, Södermanland, is one of the most heavily populated Sweden Finnish cities of Sweden, due to migration from Finland, during the 1950s until the 1970s, due to Eskilstuna's large number of industries. In Eskilstuna, the Finnish-speaking minority have both a private school and only one magazine in Finnish. Some of the municipal administration is also available in Finnish. In the Finnish mindset, the term "Sweden Finns" (ruotsinsuomalaiset) is first and foremost directed at these immigrants and their offspring, who at the end of the 20th century numbered almost 200,000 first-generation immigrants, and about 250,000 second-generation immigrants. Of these some 250,000 are estimated to use Finnish in their daily lives, and 100,000 remain citizens of Finland. People with Finnish heritage comprise a relatively large share of the population of Sweden. In addition to a smaller part of Sweden Finns historically residing in Sweden, there were about 426,000 people in Sweden (4.46% of the total population in 2012) who were either born in Finland or had at least one parent who was born in Finland.[9]

United States

As early as 1638, Finns and Swedes colonized New Sweden, which was located around the Delaware River. Many of these Finns had been living in central Sweden, and their ancestors had left Finland during the 1500's. From the 1820's on, long before the general wave of Finnish immigration to the United States, hundreds of Finns came to Alaska as representatives of the Russian Empire, making up about one-third of the Russian population there. Among them were the families of government officials, Lutheran clergymen, and many seamen. After 1867, many of these Finns became early settlers in California.

From the 1860's onward, an estimated 316,000 Finns, primarily from Ostrobothnia, immigrated to the United States. Most settled in Michigan, especially in the upper peninsula. Many Finns also settled in Minnesota, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, Montana, Washington, Oregon, and California. From the 1860's onward, an estimated 316,000 Finns, primarily from Ostrobothnia, immigrated to the United States. Most settled in Michigan, especially in the upper peninsula. Many Finns also settled in Minnesota, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, Montana, Washington, Oregon, and California.

Internal Migration

Moving Records (Muuttaneet/Muuttokirjat; Flyttningslängder/Flyttningsbetyg) can assist in tracing a family as they moved around Finland. These records were kept by churches. Ministers used the communion books to note individuals and families who moved into or out of the parish.

By the late 1700s some parishes began to issue moving certificates (muuttokirjat/flyttningsbetyg) to persons leaving the parish. These certificates identified the persons to their new minister and were chronologically archived in the new parish.

Information Recorded in the Records

  • Moving Certificates (muuttokirjat/flyttningsbetyg): usually included the following information about a person: name, birth date and birthplace, occupation, marital status, reading ability, knowledge of religion, worthiness to partake of the communion, character reference, vaccination information, and the place where the person was registered for taxation. If a whole family moved, the certificate generally contained at least the name of each family member.

Strategy

When using emigration/immigration records to find the name of an ancestor's town in Finland, see Finland Finding Town of Origin for additional research strategies.

References

  1. ↑ Wikipedia contributors. "Immigration to Finland." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Finland, accessed 24 September 2024.
  2. ↑ "Finnish Emigration and Immigration after World War II." Arkisto.org. https://arkisto.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/011_Korkiasaari_Soderling.pdf, accessed 24 September 2024.
  3. ↑ "The Finns," Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress. loc.gov. https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/scandinavian/the-finns/, accessed 24 September 2024.
  4. ↑ "Emigration," - Siirtolaisuusinstituutti. https://siirtolaisuusinstituutti.fi/en/research/emigration/, accessed 24 September 2024.
  5. ↑ "Finland: Demographics", in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland#Demographics, accessed 27 April 2021.
  6. ↑ "Finnish Australians", in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Australians, 27 April 2021.
  7. ↑ "Finnish Genealogy and Family history", in Wikipedia, https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/fra/decouvrez/immigration/histoire-ethniques-culturels/Pages/finlandais.aspx, 27 Apri 2021.
  8. ↑ "Russians in Finland", in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians_in_Finland, accessed 527 April 2021.
  9. ↑ '"Sweden Finns", in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_Finns, accessed 27 April 2021.
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