AEMI

74 AEMI JOURNAL 2015
Searching for a match in our database
for births under the family name-variations
of Riuppe Ruppe etc., only one
came up, that of Mathias Henricsson,
born 1794 June 25 at Riippa/Rippa/
Rippala in Marinkainen village, Låchteå
parish, the third child born to Henric
Mattsson of Rippa/Rippala etc., married
1784 November 11: Carin Mattsdotter
at Kelvå parish (both parishes
situated north of Karleby/Kokkola city
in Ostrobothnia).
I don’t harbor any quarrel with any
of those in Finland who now suddenly
both privately as well as nowadays publicly
insist they are related to, or descendents
of this Mathias Henricsson Riippa
etc., born 1794 June 25 in Ostrobothnia.
However, my quarrel lies therein
that none of those who claim their actual
kinship to Mathias Henricsson, son of
Henric Mattsson from Rippa/Rippa/
Rippala etc. farm in Marinkainen village
in Låchteå parish has so far presented
me or anyone else, with that most necessary
water-tight proof that Mathias Henricsson
is actually identical to that of my Matvei
Riupp/Riuppa/Riuppe/Ruppe/Ruppa,
worker of Vyborg Gubernia, town of Vyborg,
Kurvem… village, which claim I
hereby declare to be moot until someone
steps forward and does so. In this I’m
also to blame, as foolish as I at the time
was, when I most tentatively thought I
had with this identification hit the Jack
Pot. A mistake I have sorely regretted,
as several years later my most trusted
contact at Kodiak sent me photocopies
of the following original Russian Orthodox
Church records for Alaska:
Confessional Records issued by the
Alaska Consistory to the Clergy of the
Church of the Holy Resurrection at
Kodiak for 1850 under the heading for
Spruce Island, page 4, is listed: peasant
Matvei Stefanov Riuppe age 58, indicating
this Matvei’s birth year to be about
1792, give or take a year or so, and that
his father’s given name is/was Staffan/
Stefan/Stephan etc. (Enckell 2007:77-
79).
Here lies one of those many troubles:
one is that our Mathias Henricsson
was born 1794 June 25, the other
it’s that “Stefanov” bit. In the first place
it doesn’t fit above Mathias Henricsson
whose father’s first name was Henric, in
Russian mangled to Genrik. Secondly, as
a patronymic was mostly, but not always
an indication of the father’s name, as at
times it was a name suitably caught out
of thin air. As frustrating as it may be
to admit, my search has so far brought
no waterproof results. I nowadays tend
to think our trouble causing Mathias
might have been a member of Finnish
Karelia’s Orthodox community. Therefore,
sadly this Mathew falls within that
10-20 per cent I so far haven’t been able
to identify.
Note: If a Finnish database search for
the years 1790 to 1796 is made for the
name of Mathias, with Staffan/Stefan/
Stephan as the father’s name, then 40
possibilities turns up, but none have a
family- or village or farm-name starting
with the letter R. However, one
did come up with the village name of
Kärmetlax which just might be twisted
into something similar to that of Kurvem…
also tied to the identity of our
Matts/Mathias. When a search under
the names of Mathias and Stefan* and
the letter R* is made for the family name
only two came up, but the birth dates
were all wrong, and when the same was