How do we explain that our role is to preserve what was and not translate it into a different language?

Question

In the last few days I have encountered WikiTreeers who some how forget that for much of the time Swedish was the language of much of Finland and that it is wrong to translate Swedish names ihto Finnish. Johan becomes Juha; Andersdotter becomes Antintytär.  Finnish source materials such as Hiski and SSHY preserve the Swedish form and by leaving them in Swedish it makes searching and finding sources easier.

Comments

This is a known and problematic issue in Finnish genealogy. I think the current best practice is to use normalized versions of names, ie. Finnish names for Finnish speakers and Swedish names for Swedish speakers.

I guess the question boils down to what WikiTree actually is. Is it simply an extension of eg. HisKi with better relationships, or is it a database of people as they called themselves. So far I've personally assumed the latter. In any case, this should be well documented in the project so we can at least attempt to be consistent.

There is a good article, unfortunately only in Finnish, by a competent naming researcher. http://www.genealogia.fi/nimet/nimi15s.htm

Side note: HisKi already does conversion from normalized Finnish names to original Swedish names.

Answer 1

Send them a polite private message: "Hi there; I noticed you've been changing the spelling of a number of Finnish folks that should not be changed. Here's the convention we follow at wikitree:"

and point them to this wikitree help page:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Name_Fields#General_Naming_Conventions

"We use their convention not ours."

Then change the spelling accordingly.

Comments

The problem in a multi lingual country is to know what the people called themselves in 1820.  In parts of Finland the 'Official' records were kept in Swedish by the Lutheran Church. Birth records, death records, marriage records were listed using Swedish names.  How do we find solid sources which inform us what they called themselves 200 years ago?

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Solid sources are hard to find for this determination. A good rule of thumb is that Åland, archipelago of Turku and coastal areas are Swedish speaking, and most other areas are Finnish.

One source that I found is Tarkiainen, Kari: Sveriges Österland: Från forntiden till Gustav Vasa. Finlands svenska historia 1. Skrifter utgivna av Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland 702:1. Helsingfors: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland; Stockholm: Atlantis, 2008

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We go with the records for the time period. Explain the rest in the narrative.

Answer 2

I'm new here but I am sure that names should be recorded as the person themselves called themselves, as they were called at birth. Other forms of their names can be recorded as well.

Answer 3

There are many parts of the world where for long periods of time a language other than that spoken by the overwhelming majority of the population was the official language. Finland is one of these countries. Today 5.5% of the population are native Swedish speakers, 91.7% speak Finish. I am not aware of any major Swedish exodus from Finland after Sweden lost control of it in the early 19th century so it seems fair to assume that this relation may be pretty close to what existed back then. The Finish nobility and upper bourgeoisie who took on the Swedish language were just a small minority. Based on this history it is fair to debate what names to use for a Finish farmer. Juho Juhonpoika may very well have had a baptismal record reading Johan Johansson but for most of his life he was Juho and not Johan. While his Swedish name should be on the record if indeed the source confirms it, in my opinion the Preferred Name should be Juho and the Current Last Name Juhonpoika.

Comments

There are parts of Finland where the official language is Swedish (Åland).  Unless there is evidence to the contrary, the name should not be translated on the whim of the writer.

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For Liisa who is from Kiikka (from the Swedish Wikipedia): Kiikka var enspråkigt finskt och blev del av Äetsä 1981.

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From Google translate Kiikka was monolingual Finnish and became part of Äetsä, 1981.  So much can change in 200 years.  Hiski indicates that her father was Anders Kimpa and her mother was Caisa Simonsdotter. It further shows that church records list everyone in Swedish.  Except for the occasional farm name nothing is in Finnish.  Liisa Antintytär [family name unknown] is wrong and unhelpful. Lisa might have used the patronymic Andersdotter or possibly Kimpa.  Her LNAB is not unknown, but further searching in Hiski shows Lisa Kimpa was never used so I would use Andersdotter as her LNAB.

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Nobody denies that there are areas in Finland with a majority of Swedish speakers or that Swedish was the official language in Finland during the Swedish and even the Russian period of their history. But the overwhelming majority of the population spoke Finnish as documented by the repeated requests of the representatives of the farmers in the riksdagen to provide Finnish translations and to consider Finnish speakers for the appointment to various official positions - both requests remaining unfulfilled.

The Finns and the Swedish minority in Finland have struggled with this issue for a long time but have finally reached a compromise they can both live with, my wife's family being an example that many considered being from Finland above these cultural issues. She is the product of a marriage in the US between a Finland Swedish and a Finnish family.

What this issue boils down to is a determination of what population group an individual belonged to with respect to what Preferred Name or Current Last Name to use. For sure, the name on the original record should go in the LNAB field but for many Finns the Swedish record is akin to a Latin record everywhere else in Europe, it is not the name they used in daily life.

Answer 4

My two cents:  In the 16th century it was very common for English baptism records to be written in Latin, even though the people being recorded never spoke Latin and the Latin form of their name might never have appeared elsewhere.  Should we show (for example) Johannes instead of John if that is what was in the baptism record?  This is NOT currently the way things are generally done, but perhaps common practice is at odds with WikiTree policy.

Comments

What I have done in other contexts is to put "administrative language" (mostly Latin) names in the "Proper First Name" and "Last Name at Birth" fields and the day-to-day names in the "Preferred" and "Current Last Name" fields. I think it facilitates identifying people when searching from a document with doing justice to naming them as they would be called in their daily life.

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That sound very reasonable.  But with a spoken, official language such as Swedish in Finland, I think changing the name to Finnish needs to be supported.