Surname Järvenpää?

Question

I am looking for information on what area of Finland this name comes from. My great grandfather Mike (Mika or Mikko?) was the last known member of my family that I know of to use the name. When he immigrated to the US, he was forced to shorten it to Jarve in order to find work. Jarve is a fairly uncommon name as it is and I'm having a hard time finding sources that would help me find his place of origin. Does anyone have any advice or know anything about my family?

Answer 1

Järvenpää is a name of a city near Helsinki in Finland. So it could be that this surname comes from this area. I researched Järvenpää on the 1910 US Census where there is 53 people with that surname, mostly born in Finland. There is a Mikko Järvenpää who arrived on 13 Feb 1905 S.S. New York sailed from Southampton (Feb 4 1905) born roughly abt 1874 in Tampere, Finland (3rd largest city in Finland). If you want more details, contact me.

Answer 2

I have a copy of his 1905 immigration record if you want it. The town looks like Tampera, but I might be wrong. If you send me your email address, I'd be happy to send you a copy of it.

BTW, if you ever need help with Finnish genealogy, this is the place to go: http://www.finlandia.edu/Department/FAHC/fahc.html

I found the record at EllisIsland.org. There's a transcription error, so it didn't come up with the other records under the correct spelling. The put the name of the town as "TAMPERE"


First Name: Mikko
Last Name: Jaravenpaa
Ethnicity: Finland Finnish
Last Place of Residence: Tampere
Date of Arrival: Feb 13, 1905
Age at Arrival: 28y Gender: M Marital Status: M
Ship of Travel: New York
Port of Departure: Southampton
Manifest Line Number: 0008

http://www.ellisisland.org/search/passRecord.asp?order_num=977555122&MID=10860246230012206400&order_num=977555122&ORDER_ID=1600110862&FNM=MIKKO&LNM=JARVENPAA&PLNM=JARVENPAA&CGD=M&SYR=1905&EYR=1905&first_kind=0&last_kind=0&town_kind=0&ship_kind=0&TOWN=null&SHIP=null&RF=1&pID=102357011182

Answer 3

Finnish surnames were coined based on where a person lived, or after plants or animals (Varis, which means crow, Kettu(nen) which means fox, etc). If your surname is Virtanen ("Virta" = "the flow of water",) it means that at some point your family lived next to a river, if it's Aalto (= "wave") then your family lived near the sea or a lake large enough to have waves. Järvenpää means "the end of a lake", so your family may have lived at the end of one of Finland's thousands of lakes - kind of hard to pinpoint an origin from that. Or it might just be coined from the name of the city of Järvenpää.

Answer 4

On www.rootsweb.com, just putting in "Jarvenpaa" in the search, showed these locations:
LOHTAJA-VASSAN-FINLAND
Haapajarvi, Oulu, Suomi (Finland)
Helsinki, Finland
Lohtaja, Finland - Karhi
Alaviirre village , Lohtaja, Finland
Vilppula, Finland

There are several listings on ancestry.com with that last name, but only 51 on rootsweb (your great-grandfather is not listed, however.)
From www.familysearch.org there is this listing under Birth and Death (and his father's name, birthdate):

Michel Larsson Jarvenpaa
Birth: 1724 Jarvenpaa,Rapattila, Viipurin Maalaiskunta, Viipuri, Finland
ää Death: 1802 Jarvenpaa,Rapattila, Viipurin Maalaiskunta, Viipuri, Finland
Father: Lars Jarvenpaa
Birth: About 1698 Jarvenpaa,Rapattila, Viipurin Maalaiskunta, Viipuri, Finland

Answer 5

Just a guess but how about Jarvenpaa, Finland. It's a good size town.

Answer 6

my grand mothers name was jarvenpaa from kauhava how do I contact them