Record Atlas
4 eras · 1686–2026 · 23 places

Finland

Helsinki, Turku, Vyborg, Ostrobothnia, Karelia. Which empire held this ground in which years — and, the part that matters, which archive that means.

Where researchers lose records here

1917–1944 — THE TRAP IS KARELIA. The parishes ceded to the Soviet Union in 1940 and 1944 were evacuated, and their registers were evacuated with them — so the records of a place now in Russia are in Finland, at the National Archives, and not where the place is.

Whose archive this ground was

YearsWho held itWhose archive that means
1686–1809 Sweden — the eastern half of the realm Kansallisarkisto / HisKi · Riksarkivet — Digitala forskarsalen · FamilySearch

Finland was not a Swedish possession but a part of Sweden, so the 1686 church law and its communion books apply here too and Finnish parish records are as good and as early as Swedish ones.
1809–1917 Grand Duchy of Finland, under the Russian crown Kansallisarkisto / HisKi · FamilySearch

Russia took Finland in 1809 and changed almost nothing about how it kept records: the Lutheran parishes went on keeping the same books in the same way. A researcher who assumes Russian imperial record-keeping here will look for the wrong thing.
1917–1944 Finland Kansallisarkisto / HisKi · FamilySearch

THE TRAP IS KARELIA. The parishes ceded to the Soviet Union in 1940 and 1944 were evacuated, and their registers were evacuated with them — so the records of a place now in Russia are in Finland, at the National Archives, and not where the place is.
1944–2026 Finland Kansallisarkisto / HisKi · FamilySearch

Parish registers are the civil record until 1999. The National Archives' own service is free; the Genealogical Society's index of it is the usual way in.

The rings are approximate — deliberately. They exist to shade which filing system a place fell under, not to adjudicate a border. A place near a ring's edge should be checked against both neighbours.

See the whole span, 1686–2026, on the map →

The map takes a range, and a range that crosses one of the rows above is where records get lost: the family never moved, and the archive on the far side of the handover will tell you it holds nothing.

23 places on this ground

48 FamilySearch collections reach this ground

Ranked with the regional ones first — a collection for a province is usually a better lead than a national index, though the national index is often where a name is actually written down. A free account opens the images.

All record regions · The map