Becoming Croatian

[barbender]

The Iron Range of Minnesota (towns like Hibbing, Virginia, and Mountain Iron) was a real melting pot. There were many Italians, Finns, Serbs, Croats, and others that immigrated and found work in the Iron mines. It's not unusual to see someone of mixed Finnish-Italian ancestry or other groups that didn't tend to mix much elsewhere. 

There are a lot of -ich names up there. FFOTS, that is analogous to "son", correct? 

Maybe I've told this before, I met a guy from Columbia once. The folks he was with were calling him Buković, we thought they were playing around and gave him a nickname to make him sound like a "Ranger". I got visiting with him, through very broken English he explained that his grandfather escaped Europe after WWII and went to Columbia. I asked, "what does Buković mean?" He kind of lit up, and said, "it mean, son of wolf...way better than son of b**** ha ha ha!"

So his name really was Buković🤷😂

[SwampDonkey]

Great detective work. Good to know family history. I have Scottish lineage traceable to William 'The Bruce' Wallace. Although none of the more recent ancestry had any title or aristocracy. A lot of the Scots who where farmers where drove out during the Highland or Lowland clearances when there was a shift in Agricultural practices in Scotland.

[Corley5]

My wife's family on her mother's side could qualify for Lithuania citizenship. They're full on Poles with a Catholic background that ended three or four generations or so back after the family came to Philadelphia where they opened a fruit market. But there's a Lithuania Jewish connection in the Old World and we all know what happened in WWII. This is what would qualify them for Lithuania citizenship. 

[firefighter ontheside]

Yes, the ich or ić means son of.  There is a town near where my family came from called Modruś.  Presumably that's where my family line originated.  There was someone called Modruś.

There is a common misconception that a lot of names were changed at Ellis Island.  It did happen, but not very often.  Ellis Island employed people who spoke the languages to make sure they got the names right.  Of course, they weren't responsible when someone gave the wrong name.  When a fluent and literate Croatian speaker is told a Croatian name, he knows how to spell it.  A lot,of the folks coming over were illiterate.  Names could even be spelled wrong in their native country due to illiteracy.  My name is Modrosic, supposed to be Modrusic.  I am friends with a Modrošić in Croatia.  Her name should be Modrušić, but someone in her past spelled it wrong.

[barbender]

In Finnish, it is -nen. I think it has the sense of "of" or "from" because sometimes it means the son of someone, other times the place they are from. Maki to Makinen for an example.

There are a lot of Finns up here, from the UP of Michigan to North Dakota. My wife has Finnish ancestry. 

Some of the earliest settlers in North America were Finns and Swedes in the Chesapeake Bay area. It's thought that the later English settlers in the area learned log building construction from them, because that was a style of building not really found in England. So you had English building form coupled with
Scandinavian log building techniques, giving birth to something American- the dovetail log cabin so prevalent in the Appalachians. 

More interesting Finnish trivia- many of the Finns that came to the Iron Range had strong communist leanings. In the 1930's, the Soviets had active agents up there and convinced many Finns to come to the Soviet Union, where they could form a Finnish Socialist State in Karelia. I don't know how many went, but it wasn't a small number. 

I can't imagine making the voyage with the whole family from Finland to northern MN, then going all the way back to Russia!

When they got back there, things were in for a bit, but then Stalin's purges began. Since most of the Finns were quite nationalist, most of the men disappeared in the night. 

The former leader of the Communist Party of the US was a Finn from little Makinen, MN which is a township up on the edge of the Iron Range.

[firefighter ontheside]

Interesting @barbender .  Hadn't heard about that before.  I knew they lived in MN of course, but I never heard about them leaving to go to Russia.

I've had a theory about the ending ić that it could also mean from a place and not literally the son of one man.

[barbender]

I first read about those Finns that went back about 15 years ago, I suppose. Seems absolutely crazy now looking back, but back then the working class was pretty dirt poor no matter what economic system you were under or where you were in the world. So it seemed reasonable to them to go back, next door to Finland, and under an idealogy that they thought was the future. 

I found an article about this event, it was way more people than I thought- as many as 10,000!

https://crosssection.gns.wisc.edu/2014/10/12/an-american-in-petrozavodsk-finnish-american-emigration-to-soviet-karelia-by-zachary-strom/

[SwampDonkey]

There was a lot of communism around in the 20 and 30's across Europe and over here. Trudeau's father, Pierre Elliot Trudeau was a communist sympathizer before he was prime minister and during. US economic professor (retired) Richard Wolff will fill you in on that history.

[beenthere]

Recently lost a close friend who was from a Finnish family in northern WI. 

Found this article written about his family and how they came from Finland to Ely, MN. 

https://herbsterwisconsin.com/okkonen-matti-and-maria/

Fit well with "barbender" post. 

[WhitePineJunky]

I have a buddy who is an American/Canadian dual citizen. He can really zip through the border compared to other Americans, the Canucks are kinda like, "Welcome home!"😂

Not too long ago the only thing you needed was a drivers license to cross the border. IMO CDN/USA dual citizenship is the best combo Citizenship to have worldwide.

This from today https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/13/canada-fingerprint-visit-us

[WhitePineJunky]

There was a lot of communism around in the 20 and 30's across Europe and over here. Trudeau's father, Pierre Elliot Trudeau was a communist sympathizer before he was prime minister and during. US economic professor (retired) Richard Wolff will fill you in on that history.

Macleans has a decent article on PT here

https://macleans.ca/economy/the-trudeau-familys-love-of-tyrants/

[SwampDonkey]

The National Post has an article this month, even a podcast about P. E. Trudeau.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/pierre-trudeau-really-really-loved-communists-canada-did-what-podcast

[barbender]

BT, my wife is descended from a community of Finns that settled from the UP to MN. I think they all came from the northern part of Finland, and were part of a Lutheran Church movement called "Laestadian" by outsiders, after the Lutheran pastor that founded the movement. 

Lars Levi Laestadius was a half Saami Swede who worked among the Saami, in the area where Sweden, Norway, and Finland border each other. A religious revival took place that swept that area. The movement splintered and there are a wide variety of churches that descended from it. 

I don't think I've ever heard anyone in the church my wife grew up in call it "Laestadian" though, or if anyone knows that's where it originated. It is called the Independent Apastolic Lutheran Church. It's a very old school, simple church service but with rare but not unheard of outbursts of what seem to be American Pentecostalism. It's rather striking, if you picture a somber, old Lutheran service with a Pentecostal show of emotion in the middle out of no where😊 It doesn't have anything to do with Pentecostalism and has its roots at the beginning of the movement 

Anyways, these Finnish communities are still very centered around there Church, and the services seem as much family reunions as anything else. The unique way they worship, and keep to themselves a bit has had the affect of kind of insulating them from just blending in to the culture.