Family history research has long been a popular FinnFest program topic, becoming in recent years a separate all-day seminar experience where people can discover the myriad of sources from which family histories can be constructed. This year, the seminar will emphasize the act of writing family history. Sessions will explore techniques and tools available to help the family historian. We will define this as Nordic family history and assist the family history researcher to become aware of both American and Nordic European history tools. Questions like: How does this specific family reflect American experiences? How does it reflect the Nordic European families to whom they are also related? How much can actually uncover? The results will reveal how Americans have encountered and described meaning to the rest of the world” encourages us to ask you to be our keynoter.

We begin the seminar with a keynote on the topic of “‘Family History Challenges in the 21st century.” We will close with two sessions that illustrate how DNA information becomes part of a broader, more nuanced family history narrative. Our goal this year is to help attendees understand how individual family histories connect to and enlighten larger Nordic American historical narratives. The seminar includes welcome morning coffee as well as lunch.

The seminar includes welcome morning coffee as well as lunch.

9:00-3:00 8:30-9:00: Registration and Coffee
9:00 am Welcome: James Johnson, Seminar Moderator Keynote: Family History Challenges in the 21st Century A Conversation about Gathering Data and Writing History What can family historians learn from Historians who study the 20th Century? James Johnson, Writer and Teacher Scott Laderman, Prof. of History, University of Minnesota Duluth
10:00 am: Nordic History Challenges: The Experience of the Migration Institute “The Migration Institute of Finland at 50: Current Research and Resources” Saara Pellander, Director, Migration Institute of Finland and Samira Saramo, Senior Research Fellow, Migration Institute of Finland
11:00 am: Global Migration, Past and Present: How do Nordic family histories connect?
“Migration’s differing narratives: 500 years of coming to America” K. Marianne Wargelin, Public Historian 12:00 pm Lunch Break with table discussions (Catered lunch served in the seminar room.)
1:00 pm History Research and the use of DNA “John Morton’s Finnish Roots: a study in history and genetic genealogy” Auvo Kostiainen, Professor of History, Emeritus, University of Turku, Finland
2:00 pm Family History and the DNA Tools. Barbara Wilson and Mary Lukkarila Finnish Genealogy Club of Minnesota (Only Genealogy Club in the USA devoted to Finnish genealogy)
3:00 pm Concluding Remarks James Johnson
3:30 pm End