Recognized HTML document

amount to about 3,000. The total figure from all Swedish-speaking areas in Finland is estimated to be close to 60,000.57

To try to arrive at a figure embracing the Swedish-speaking Finns in America valid for the present, it is necessary to consider how many may have returned to Finland, as well as the mortality rate; if the total seems to have been less than 40,000 as far back as 1930, there can hardly be more than 10,000 at the present time. 58 Further, it can be seen that after the 1950 United States Census there was a change in the total picture of Finns in America: death had taken three out of four who had come. Applying the same percentage to the Swedish-speaking Finns would bring their total to the 10,0G3-12,000 mark. Finally, since the last Finnish census indicates the Swedish-speaking population of Finland to be 9 percent of the total, that 9 percent seems to hold true also for their share in the total Finnish emigration to America.

In 1924, Wargelin estimated that the average age of Finnish immigrants coming to the United States fell into the 20-30 year bracket. 59 Some three decades later, Jokinen 60 found that the majority who came to America between 1911-1930 fell into the 21-40 age group; less than 10 percent were children; less than 2 percent were over fifty. The Finnish Statistical Yearbook for 1951 confirms these figures in its breakdown of emigrants by age groups, as follows

	1911-1920	1921-1930	1931-1940		1941-1950
Age	Total %	Total %	Total	%	Total	%
-15	9,063 13.5	4,878 8.3	1,243	14.1	5,939	26.7
16-20	15,646 23.2	7,770 13.3	1,306	14.8	2,562	11.5
21-25	17,982 26.7	18,040 30.8	1,8.4	20.8	4,190	18.9
26-30	10,834 16.1	12,267 21.0	1,398	15.8	3,102	13.9
31-40	9,173 14.2	11,024 18.9	1,864	21.2	3,814	17.2
41-50	2,683 4.0	3,359 5.8	839	9.2	1,873	8.4
51-	1,211 1.8	1,002 1.7	359	4.1	735	3.3	(61)

The registers of the Soini commune, previously cited, also showed the age at which emigrants left from that specific area: 5 were 17 years old; 6 were 18; 7 were 19; 13 were 20; 109 were between the ages of 21-40; one was 41; one, 42; two, 45; one, 48; one, 52; one, 55. Only one child was listed age one. 62

57. Interview with Carl Gustafson, President of Runeberg Orden. Minnesota Finnish

American Historical Society Archives.

58. Gustafson, op. cit.; Arkiv för svenska Österbotten I, Vaasa, 1922; Det svenska Fin

land I-II, Helsinki, 1919-23.

19. J. Wargelin, op. cit. p. 67. 60. W. Jokinen, op. cit. p. 47.

61. Suomen Tilastollinen Vuosikirja 1951. Helsinki, 1952, 62. Soini parish records, op. cit.