Call it an AI fail, but I plugged this into a couple translator apps and one gave me nonsense, one just froze up. Can someone help translate this or just give me the high level details like locations, siblings, kids, husband? It's my great-great-grandma's obituary.

by vipers1ren

9 comments

  2. Type that into google translator. You can substitute Ä and Ö with A and O. It will autocorrect.

  4. Mrs Kaisa Jonson (born Kemppainen) was born in Muhos, the region of Oulu, in November of 1860, and was 78 years of age on the day of death. She got married to Jacob Aho, and they moved to America, settling here on government homestead land in 1892, with mr. Aho dying shortly afterwards. They have been married with Mr Johnson for more than 40 years. They have John, Jacob and Andrew as surviving children from previous marriages, and mrs Hattie (Heta) Salo, and mrs Alina Sarvi, Sebekassa, Minn., and mrs Annie Heikkilä on a farm near Cloquet, and from their second marriage here, daughter Jennie, mrs Lempi Tweet, and several grandchildren and other relatives. Buried in the Itä-Kalevala cemetary thursday, April 20th, with reverend Chas. Hill doing the honours. Mrs Johnson was friendly to everyone, leaving a memory of a proper wife and neighbour.

    I received a card from mrs Albin Paappanen in Kangasniemi Finland, stating mr Paappanen has died and buried in May 10th to the old cemetary of Kangasniemi. He left behind his wife, Elma Paappanen and son Sulo and daughter Eila. Albin Paappanen lived here for a long time, until his daughter burned to death in a forest fire in October the 12th 1918. He and his wife visited Finland, and when mr Paappanen died in Two Harbors, Paappanen re-visited Finland on more than one occasion, sometimes due to business. She remarried in Kangasniemi, leaving her family behind. She got a stroke, but recovered enough to be able to stand up for a while. Born in Kangasniemi, and lived in Ely while in this country.

  6. So your grandmother Kaisa Kemppainen was born in 1860 in Muhos, Finland. Probably lots of your distant relatives still living there. Not a big place. 8000 people.

    Her husband Jakob Aho was Finnish too, it seems, and they married before leaving for America.

    Lots of people immigrated from those areas, impoverished times.

    You can ask more from the church offices. They might have the information where her parents are buried and who they were. The rest is online anyway.

    They’ll have a record for her marriage for mr Aho and where he was born. His name was probably Jaakko originally.

    https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhos

    https://muhos.fi/

  7. **This looks like an obituary, so the mention of her death right after her birth date makes sense from that point of view, but kinda obfuscates the reference to the location of her marriage, which is implied. Anyway, I’ll try to translate:**

    Mrs Kaisa Johnson ( nee Kemppainen ) was born in town of Muhos in Oulu Province in the November of 1860. She was 78 years of age at the time of her death.

    She married Jacob Aho there (at Muhos) and they moved to America, settling here on the Government homestead land at 1892. Mr. Aho died shortly afterwards. They have been married with Mr. Johnson for over 40 years.

    Her surviving children from her previous marriage are boys John, Jacob and Andrew Aho; Daughters mrs. Hattie (Heta) Salo and mrs. Alina Sarvi at Sebeka, Minnesota, and mrs. Annie Heikkilä at a farm near Cloquet; And (surviving children) from her second marriage daughter Jennie, mrs. Matt Leino, who lives in here, and mrs. Lempi Tweet and numerous grandchildren and other relatives who live at Bovey.

    She was buried at East Kalevala Cemetery at Thursday 20th of April. The clerical duties were performed by preacher Chas Hill. Mrs. Johnson was kind to everyone and left a good memory as a good mother and neighbor.

    **This is where the actual first paragraph ends. The paragraphs above were added for readability. Second paragraph:**

    I received a postcard from mrs. Albin Paappanen from Finland, explaining that mr. Paappanen has died there and was buried at Kangasniemi old cemetery at 10th of April. He left behind wife Elma Paappanen and a son and a daughter, Sulo and Eila. Albin Paappanen lived here for a long time and his daughter Stella burned to during a forest fire at 12th of October in 1918. Albin and his wife did a trip to Finland, and after his wife died in Two Harbor, Paappanen returned to Finland, but visited this country again a few years ago on business matters. He remarried at Kangasniemi and left behind a family there. He got a stroke a few years ago, but recovered enough to spend some time on his feet. He was born at Kangasniemi and lived for a long time at Ely during his stay on this country.

    Signed, J.M

    **The bolded parts of this post are not part of the translation. Feel free to ask if something in the translation is unclear and I’ll try to clarify.**

  8. Others have already translated this, so I won’t do that, but: if your great great grandma was born and wed in Muhos, as stated here, there should be records of her. Those records are old enough that they are public, and most of them are digitized. The ones from your great great grandmother’s years aren’t yet available online though, unless you are member of SSHY (Finnish family history association), so you probably can’t access them yourself, for now. If you’d like though, I could take a look for you and see if I can find records of her and her family? I’ve dug around the church books of Muhos before, as I have ancestry from there as well.

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