my wife found out a few years ago (after thinking she was 100% norwegian) that one of her great-great grandmas was actually a mail order bride from Finland. or great? can't remember which. Anyway, they shipped her over. Some sort of shortage of men in Finland and a shortage of Norwegian women that wanted to move to ND? Not sure the circumstances. So I mercilessly tease her family about it--this whole time they'd been "rah-rah Norway this, rah rah norway that". Told her it was nothing to be ashamed of. One of her great aunts had a picture with "Arrives from finland".
That would have just devastated my family, they are such proud Norwegians. Hilarious though.
Off topic from the Fin stuff but kind of in line with Ryns experience I have a story to tell.
My father died when I was 15 (I am now 46) and after that the family (3 sisters all older than myself) kind of splintered all over the country.
Well a few years ago my sister in Wisconsin decided that we should all get together for a Christmas at her place, it would be the first time ever all of us with our spouses and kids had been in the same place at the same time so it was a very special occasion.
So Christmas Eve arrives and we have had a wonderful time and then my Wisconsin sister who is the keeper of all the family pictures and historic papers and such announced she had a very special gift for each of the siblings.
We all open our special gifts and it is a large very nicely framed and beautifully put together montage of our family. Now as i was looking at this beautiful montage and getting a bit teary eyed one particular picture caught my eye, I just couldn't recognize who this person was in this picture. My sister from Cali leans over and whispers in my ear, "Kelly, who is that in that picture there?" I said I don't know.
So I asked Wisconsin sister "Kim who is this man?" she says "What do you mean, that is dad!" I said "Whose dad?" Kim says "What do you mean? It's our dad of course"
Me and my other sisters busted out laughing because who ever that man was he was not our father. Kim was convinced it was dad because this picture was in one of his albums and the guy is wearing a Navy uniform. I had to point to Kim that the man in the picture was actually a Marine.
She offered to redo all the montages but I said naw leave it, the memory of this glorious mistake will be cherished forever
So on my living room wall, prominently displayed for all to see is a beautiful montage of my family and some Marine.