Bryant Tolles is an American expatriate who currently calls Imatra, Finland home when he is not back in the United States. He has spent the last two decades in finance and business consulting, having worked in the San Francisco Bay Area working with tech startups. He continues to work virtually with his consulting firm to help emerging startups. From his base in Imatra, just three kilometers north of the Russian border and three hours east from Helsinki, Tolles is enjoying his time Finland, skiing countless local ski trails in the surrounding communities in the winter. Warmer and summer weather finds him outdoors in Finland, exploring its many outdoor recreation opportunities. His base in Finland also allows him to visit neighboring countries. His next planned ski adventure will take him to Tartu, Estonia, in mid-February 2025 for the World Loppet ski race that he plans to race on traditional wooden skis.
Gail Bilto was born in Detroit, Michigan, in the first half of the 1940s. She is also a descendant of Finnish-American families who settled in Michigan during the five decades of mass Finnish immigration to Michigan, Minnesota, and Ontario, Canada through the 1920s. She left her home state in 1978 and moved to New York City. Bilto currently calls the city her home. Her work history includes holding positions as a waitress, bartender, and for a market research firm. Starting in 1988, Bilto began working for farmers in the GrowNYC Greenmarkets found around the city, selling fresh food and farmers’ products, mostly at the Union Square Greenmarket. She retired in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic started. Bilto is related to Rudy Owens through their maternal families and separated by one generation.
Ronan Beckman is historical fiction author with a focus on the “long Regency” and Late Georgian era. He was born in Michigan and for more than three decades has lived in the United Kingdom, with his family. He describes himself as a keen genealogist, inspired by his wife’s ancestors and his own family stories. He’s also an adoptee, who learned growing up he had ancestry in Sweden, which ultimately led him to iscovering his family history. Many of his relatives trace their roots to farming country in central Sweden, a place he visited in the early 2000s to meet his distant kin. That trip has special significance for Beckman and helped solidify part of his family identity. His first novel was published in 2020, An Actress of Repute, and is available on Amazon. His latest project is to edit an updated version of rare, out-of-print book by a coal miner who became a Member of Parliament. Visions of the Mine by Samuel Woods is available through Amazon. Learn more about his work on his website. In this episode Owens shares his story about his visit to his family villages in South Ostrobothnia, Finland, in 2023 and Beckman shares his story visiting his family's ancestral village about two decades earlier in central Sweden. Both Owens and Beckman found their biological kin in their adulthood. Owens and Beckman are both adoptees born in the Detroit/Metro Detroit area in the 1960s.
Antti Palosaari is a non-award winning animator known to some for his YouTube channel Anttimation, which brings Finnish mythology, notably the Kalevala, and history to life for modern audiences. He is also the author of the comic Trolled, which illustrates mythical Finnish history with what else but trolls. He specializes in two things: animation and illustration. He currently lives in Tampere, Finland. His creative products can also be ordered and purchased online. Visit his page showcasing his art merchandize, including some original designs that appear in his work.
Other places to find Palosaari’s work include:
Trolled Comic: https://trolledcomic.com/
US, UK, EU: https://linktr.ee/palosaari
Finland: https://holvi.com/shop/trolled/
Website: http://anttimation.com/
Here are a few of my favorite videos by Palosaari, which I saw before my trip to Finland:
-“Kalevala – Finland's National Epic Explained”
Laura Aho is the publicist for the Genealogical Society of Finland, Suomen Sukututkimusseura (www.genealogia.fi/en/). The organization, founded in 1917, the year of Finland’s independence, is an education and memory institution that, as a scientific society, promotes Finnish family and personal history research and publishes its results. It is based in Helsinki, Finland, and provides extensive genealogical resources for researchers in Finland and around the world. For the society, Aho also publishes the organization’s Jalmari magazine, a digital magazine for society members published 11 times a year.* The magazine’s stories cover current issues and themes dealing with the society and the field of genealogy. Aho is also a PhD candidate at the University of Helsinki, majoring in Latin language and Roman literature. She speaks seven languages, including Finnish, and is the author of many articles in her fields of study and collaborator on research projects in her home country and Europe.
*In February 2024, Jalmari included Rudy Owens’ personal story how I found my Finnish kin in Finland in the summer of 2023 and the larger story of Finnish immigration to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Jack Steinmann is a Twin Cities based marketing professional, with more than 25 years of production experience for commercials as well as digital and social media. He has worked with clients such as Target, IKEA, and many more. His films and photography have been featured in local galleries, news sites, and publications including the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Photo Center, the Twin Cities Daily Planet, the Saint Paul Almanac, Indian Country Today, and others. He is a graduate of the University of Minnesota and native of Minneapolis. He now calls St. Paul home. Steinmann also has family and roots in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. With his wife, they have shared their outdoor sauna for years. He recently presented a placemaking concept in Hancock, Michigan in February 2024 during Sauna Week to create a community owned, led, and accessible public sauna for residents and visitors alike in a city with deep Finnish-American roots from the late 1800s on. The Sauna Forum, held at the Finnish American Heritage Center and hosted by the Finnish Theme Committee, brought together some 50 area residents and visitors to discuss potential interest in bringing public sauna to Hancock, the nesting place of Finnish America. Steinmann describes placemaking a participatory process for shaping public buildings and spaces that harnesses the ideas and assets of the people and communities who use it.
Jere lives near the city of Kurikka, Finland, and is an avid outdoorsman and hunter. He is also my “cousin,” whose great grandmother was the cousin my of great grandmother. We recently connected in person for the first time in February 2024 at a family gathering that brought together relatives from across Finland and, in my case, from the United States. In our interview for the inaugural episode of the “Finding Finland” podcast, with host Rudy Owens, we talk about Jere's impressions learning about an American relative who reconnected with his family in September 2023, the meaning of the Finnish trait called “sisu” and its meaning amid overhyped social media marketing, the wonderful world of saunas, and even tent saunas used for outdoor adventures in Finland. We also discuss his views if a “Finnish-American” relative is truly “Finnish,” stories about our Finnish relatives who lived in Michigan, and how to enjoy a trip to Lapland without being tormented by mosquitos.
