Changing Uses in the Genealogical Research in Finland

Abstrakti

The first written and prevailed authentic documents concerning Finnish history are very young in comparison with the other countries. They are from the beginning og the fourteenth century. In dearth of sources we know just a few scattered fragments of the genealogies of the early medieval Finns. Some of the more imaginative historians have, of course, tried to lead the origins of our ancient nobility either to the pagan chieftains of the Finnish tribes or to the Swedish crusades in Saint Erik's and Saint Henry's retinue in the twelfth century