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To: muawiyah
muawiyah,

Do you know of any websites that list the last names of known Saami settlers to the U.S.?

16 posted on 12/21/2009 5:26:34 PM PST by BerryDingle (I know how to deal with communists, I still wear their scars on my back from Hollywood-Ronald Reagan)
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To: BerryDingle

Sami, my apologies :).


17 posted on 12/21/2009 5:31:31 PM PST by BerryDingle (I know how to deal with communists, I still wear their scars on my back from Hollywood-Ronald Reagan)
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To: BerryDingle
There are websites of all sorts that name Sa'ami settlers. The first problem you will discover is that as many of them had been Christianized by 1638, they have CHRISTIAN NAMES.

Those from Finland are a bit more fortunate since many of them have older Sa'ami names acceptable to the Suomi (the Uralic/Altaic white folk who run that place these days).

Sapala (spelled several ways) is a popular Sa'ami name, as is Takala!

That name means "Fisher", and you'll find some Skolt Sa'ami from Russia who are/were Russian Orthodox and they all translated their names (which meant the same thing, but in a different language) into English when they got here.

I know a number named Nelson, Hoke, Hovas/Hovis, and so on. Those names are all spelled a lot of different ways.

One problem is that MOST Sa'ami languages were not reduced to writing until well after Amerian settlement had begun. So, you have a mix of Sa'ami names in 11 Sa'ami languages, half a dozen other languages, and they're still fairly rural in Scandinavia with about 98% of their descendants living in the United States and almost no one here knows anyone there.

Look for "Lapland" "Surnames" ~ there are a number of quite informative sources ~

Also, Elsis ~ sometimes changed to Ellis ~ but when you find Elsis and Keppel you're into some hardcore, downhome, fish eating, reindeer chomping, ligonberry snacking Sa'ami.

My practice is to ignore the ethnicity of the names and read pieces about the people who lived on the land. Then there are the Finnish and Swedish medical services who use the Skolt and Inari as "test subjects". Got an unusual problem you think might be genetic, you may have a Sa'ami ancestor or two (usually two somewhere), and the Swedes and Finns have a paper or 2 or 3, or 100, on just your problem. Sometimes they compare their findings with OTHER PEOPLE who herd reindeers but who are not Sa'ami.

21 posted on 12/21/2009 8:46:20 PM PST by muawiyah
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