To: Research Dept.
Helsinki city Library
Seeking geographical information, please:
Any information available in English
or Finnish about the
following city or town. Purportedly within the Duchy of Finland quite near the border with Russia (circa 1890).
Spelling (reading from
handwritten script):
"Pyhojarpi" or it may
rather be "Pyhojarpi"--
i.e., the "a" and/or "o" are hard to read--the other letters, however, a-r-e clear.
Seeking: (a)any descriptive information;
(b)the city's/town's exact map location--I realize it may no longer exist under that name IF it is in the
changed Karelia region,
(now within Russia since WWII, i know);
(C) finally--which office or church parish would NOW have/store any birth and/or family records for that area.
My grandfather left there
in 1890. And several Finnish-American descendent generations
lack a-n-y information at all about
this town/city.
Paljon kiitoksia
Answer
It looks like that your ancestors' homecounty is Pyhajarvi Vpl. (In Finnish Pyhajarvi is spelled with two a:s with dots, and Vpl is an abbreviation of Viipurin laani = Viipuri province). You can find a short description of the county, in Finnish though, in the following address
http://www.luovutettukarjala.org/pyhajarvihist.htm . Choose a link "Pyhäjärven kartta" and you'll find a map of the county.
Today Pyhajarvi is called Plodovoje and there are a couple of pages about it in a book called "Karjala : Suomalainen matkaopas" by Markus Lehtipuu, 2002. ISBN 952-9715-17-x. You'll find a short presentation of the book in
http://www.suomalainenmatkaopas.fi/English.htm .
You can try to find information about your ancestors via the webpages of the Genealogical Society of Finland, in the address http://www.genealogia.fi/indexe.htm . On the mainpage choose a link "HisKi - church records", then "Search program for history books" . You'll find a map with numbers, choose "21" and you'll get a list "Abolished parishes of the ceded region". On that list there is a link "Pyhajarvi".
In print there is quite a large volume of local history called "Vpl Pyhäjärvi : kappale kannakselaisvaiheita" by Impi Wiika, 1950, available in the storage of Helsinki City Library.
The National Board of Antiquities Library is specializing in local history. You can reach them via their webpage http://www.nba.fi/LIBRARY/Infoeng.htm .
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