Tall Tales & True Stories
The Håkans Family: Narpes, Finland
Our Hokans genealogy thus far: Matts Klemets Born 06.09.1828 in Närpes, Finland Died 13.07.1868 Married Maja Lisa Stornix Born 21.06.1830 in Närpes, Finland Died 10.10.1886
Anders Hendrik Klemets Born 07.08.1863 in Närpes Died 30.08.1909 in West Brownsville, Pennsylvania Married Johanna Karolina Håkans 13.03.1891 in Närpes, Finland Born 15.08.1866 Died 26.06.1942 in Worcestor, Massachusetts
(Parents of Johanna Karolina were: Anders Hendrik Håkans Born 10.03.1838 in Närpes, Finland Died 18.08.1889 Anna Stina Håkans Born 11.06.1884 in Närpes, Finland (? birthdate) Died 25.03.1911 )
Henrik Leander Matson/Håkans Born 09.06.1891 in Närpes, Finland Died 15.04.1951 in Worcestor, Massachusetts Married Winnifred Mazie Barnes in Boston(?) 1915 - 1918 Born 1/16/1898 in Boston (?) Died 6/11/1954
Henry Leander graduated June, 1911, as Henry Matson, from Southwestern State Normal School in California, Pennsylvania. It is now the University of Pennsylvania at California. (When and where did Johanna marry a man named Mat?)
Henry Leander changed his name from Matson to Hokans in 1917 in
Worcestor. At that time Johannah was married to John Johnson. When and why was
move made to Worcester? Hannah did have a brother, John Anderson, in Holden.
Henry taught elementary school in California, Pennsylvania for five
years. He graduated from the R.I. School of Music. He taught at the Hultman
Conservatory of Music in Boston. Maizie was probably attending school there at
that time, where they met
The September issue of The Leading Star newspaper has a list of immigrants from Finland who were there in the late 1800's. Below are names and the year they were in Worcester.
June Matts Anderson (Håkans), 1898 -- (this name could be translated as Matts, son of Anders, house of Hakans -- could he be Henrik's brother? Their father was Anders and their grandfather was Matts -- and they took the house name Hakans?)
Widow Clara Sophia Håkans 1896
Found at Ellis Island's Web Site:
Genealogical Society of Finland “Hiski Database”
The "Polaris" is the actual ship that brought our Håkans to America!
The following is passenger information obtained from the Finnish Institute of Migration Emigrant Register
Finnish Naming System
The following is an explanation of Finnish naming system pertaining to the name Håkans that I found at the Genealogy Society of Finland:
Narpes parrish, village of Finnby, house of Håkans, Håkans is not a family name but a house name; anyone living in that house used the name as his/her last name. When tracing your ancestors backwards you can identify them by the given name(s) plus patronymic (mother or father's name plus "son" or "dotter") and the birth date. The last name is less important. You'll find that the usage of the given name may vary during one's lifetime. In HisKi while searching e.g. Lisa you see the program looks for Elisabeth/Elisabet as well, for Pehr you usually get Petter and Per/Pär (also Pekka, which is Finnish). You get a good general look of Närpes' villages and houses in Hiski db, but for that particular parish there are only birth records. You need to know who lived where and with whom; there might be two Petter Gustafssons in, say, Håkans house, both married with Maria - and the birth records sometimes miss the wifes' patronymics. You need to consult Communion Books in order to find out how the families were like. Then you compare with HisKi / births again, maybe look for marriage records to find out more about names and people then, if necessary try to get the death and burial dates. From all this scattered information you can probably get pretty far in the past, to late 1600's I think. But there is no use to follow a false lead. This occurs easily if you suppose people with identical last names are relatives. They might be, of course, but persons like, say, Anders Pettersson Nylund and Lars Pettersson Gammal are brothers if they have a common Petter as their father, whereas Gunnar Andersson Mogen and Henrik Påhlsson Mogen are not siblings. Maybe they just happen to work as farm hands at Mogen house.