The Jacob Tijberi (Tiberg) Family

The Family of Jacob Tijberi (Tiberg) and Brita Stina Henriksdatter (the Birth Family of the Paternal Grandfather of the Editor's Maternal Grandmother), Palovaara (Korpikylä), Lappi Province, Finland. The Internet Webbsite titled, Sukutietotekniikka ry HisKi project, located at www.genealogia.org has a database of "christenings, marriages, burials and moves" in many parishes of Finland. In searching this database, for christenings in Karunki parish, the editor found three people with a Tijberi surname residing in the years 1821, 1823, and 1824, in the village of Korpikylä, in Karunki parish.

The editor assumes that Pehr Jacobsen Tijberi and Jacob Jacobsen Tijberi were the sons of Jacob Tijberi. The editor further assumes that the Pehr Jacobsen Tijberi (in the HisKi project database) was in fact Pehr Jacobsen Tiberg (the father in the Vadsø parish record of his son Isak Pehrsen Tiberg's marriage).

Apparently the Tiberg surname which appears in Norwegian church documents is derived from Tijberi, a Finnish surname.

Jacob's wife (Pehr Jacobsen's mother) was named Brita Stina Henriksdatter.

The Tornio River Valley. "The Tornio valley was a Finnish sphere of interest as early as the thirteenth century, perhaps earlier." collinder says, "... the Finnish dialect of the... region points towards southwestern Finland, especially towards... Pirkkala."

"In the Middle Ages the territory of Pirkkala was... one of the... centers of [Finnish] civilization," Collinder says. "Vikings of Pirkkala crossed the gulf [of Bothnia] northward and got a foothold in the Tornio valley." They subdued the Lapps around the outflows of the Tornio and Kemi rivers, and made them pay taxes.

"Gradually, over the centuries, certain... families came to acquire special rights to trade with the Lapps and collect taxes," Stalder says. "This activity became, in fact, their means of livelihood. The most avaricious of these families were the so-called Bir-karls (originally farmers from Pirkkala in Finland), who settled in Lapland and formed a sort of trading company by means of which they divided among themselves everything the Lapps had to trade. As this activity continued over several centuries, some of the Bir-karls grew enormously rich - at the expense of the Lapps.

"This arrangement did not come to an end until the sixteenth century," Stalder observes, "when King Gustav Vasa curtailed the royal grant, and the Lapps at last found themselves freed from the burden of being the bondsmen and property of the Bir-karls."

The Flood of 1677 in Pajala Parish. A violent spring flood innundated the Tornio river valley in 1677, and a Finnish farmer wrote a jocose epic poem based on that event. "...on its way through the parish of Pajala," Collinder says we are told in the poem, "[the flood] swept away a storehouse which contained the tithe grain of... vicar Olof Sirma." In the farmer's poetic imagination, the Tornio river changed into malt brewage which washed ashore at Lake Karunki. The farmers there made beer of it. The poem concludes with a Karunki farmer calling out in Lappish to a colleague from Pajala:

Jukest taal tsaatsekortnest
(Now drink of the water grains)
juste vuolak sattai puurist
(of which an excellent beer was made!)

Pajala Parish Cut in Two
Pajala was the center of a parish, the former boundary of which met the Kittilä parish boun- dary along the mountain ridge east of the Muonio- Tornio rivers. The peace treaty the Russians dic- tated in Hamina, in 1809, cut Pajala parish in two:

the section ot the parish which lay on the east bank of the river went to Czar Alexander I; the section on the west bank, including the town of Pajala, remained under Gustavus IV Adophus. Thus it happened, in 1809, along the length of the Konkama-Muonio-Tornio rivers from Norway in the North to the Gulf of Bothnia in the south, the rivers became the boundary between the diminished Swedish kingdom and newly created Grand Duchy of Finland. This great artery of communication which had united a people for more than six centuries, now became a wedge dividing them. A people who had shared a common ethnic and genetic heritage, became Swedes and Finns, in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Karunki and Karungi
The town of Karunki lies about 15 miles north of the Gulf of Bothnia on the Finnish, east bank of the Tornio river; the town of Karungi lies across the river on the Swedish, west bank.

"The rowboat we stepped into was seaworthy for fifteen persons," Mary says, describing her crossing from Karunki to Karungi in the afternoon on June 23, 1950. "Eight of us climbed in, making it nine with the rower. Someone began to sing: Autuasten Maasa, a hymn we all knew. Finnish tunes are mostly always in the minor key, doleful, pensive melodies, come down through ages of oppression."

"The crossing took a half hour. As we alighted, a swarm of gad flies buzzed angrily around our heads, and harassed us up the path, the hot waning sun full in our faces adding to our discomfort.

"On top of the hill the ground was level... What a peaceful countryside Karungi is! As far as the eye can see the land is level clearly to the horizon," Mary exclaims.

Korpikylä Village. The editor does not find a village named Korpikylä on his maps. However, a short distance northeast of the town of Karunki is a village named Palovaara. In searching the HisKi project database the editor has found many residents of Korpikylä village with Palovaara surnames.

The editor assumes the village of Korpikylä once was in the vicinity of Palovaara.

The Earliest Church Records in Karunki Parish. The earliest church records in Karunki parish are dated 1821. Church records of people residing in Korpikylä village Prior to 1809, should be in the files of the former Pajala parish. The editor does not know the location of church records (if any) for the years between 1809 and 1821.