marko found out some information about his family history tonight: it turns out that his family isn't necessarily from savo....they're from north karelia, my province! which is fine about face for his family, especially his sisters, who have ragged about me being a karjalainen, but i'm sure they're surprised they're not savolaiset anymore.

of course, this is just neighbour rivalry, where the people in the next province are easily castigated, although the farther away the provinces get, the less you tend to think about them. savo has probably the best lake country in northern europe, along with the gorgeous savonlinna. northern karelia (or pohjois karjala) is the ancestral and cultural lands that gave finland its language and folklore and music.

so, marko forwarded me to the genealogical society of finland and i ended up looking through their files. you may not know this, but korhonen is the 2nd most widely used surname in finland (and rising). there are too many links to poke through, including the popular baby names in both finnish and swedish and immigration patterns, but i'm fading. and a lot of it is finn, so you may not be grasping the full extent of information there.