To the Editor,

My wife, Susan, and I went on a 15 day Viking cruise in April that started in Barcelona, Spain and would end in Bergen, Norway. We both wanted to visit Finland as well. We decided to fly to Helsinki from Bergen to research my family’s history.

My mother, Signe Asmund Hyrynkangas Smith, and father William “Bill” Smith were both from Finland, the Hailuoto Island and Oulu areas. My mother’s family, with the help of our cousin, Sharon Perna, have documented the Hyrynkangas side of the family with great success.

The problem was our grandfather John Daniel Smith’s side of the family which had been researched for years with little headway. We knew that Smith was probably not the Finnish name given our family.

Using 23andMe, we located some Finnish cousins that helped with the research and determined that John’s last name was likely Smed or Sorta.

My family had researched immigration records from Ellis Island and other ports to no avail. My nephew Jamie had found a record of grandfather John on a freighter at Detroit, Michigan but it led no further.

When we arrived in Helsinki our story of family discovery began after we checked into our hotel. After we had dinner at the hotel we ran into somebody very interesting. He ended up being one of our new Finnish cousins from both sides of the family, Ilk Mustonen.

Roger Smith

Tacoma, Wash.