Short about Sursill
Erik Ångerman-Sursill was a farmer and business man in Sweden in the 1500's. Most of his descandants moved to Finland and became the base for a huge Family that has spread around the whole Finland and Sweden, in later day's also to many other countries around the world.
In the year 1660 the bishop of Turku Johan Terserus made trip to Ostrobothnia, and started to collect the information that later should become the manuscript for the famous Genealogia Sursilliana. The firt publication of the book was in 1850 by E. R. Alcenius. The second revised version was published in 1971 by Eero Kojonen with the help of the Kone Foundations sponsorship.
After that there has been published a huge amount of corrections the the Sursill genealogy, part of them can be found on The Genealogical Society of Finland's webpages. There is also numerous other corrections found by various genealogists in their work on their own branches of the Sursill Family. The book published 1971 ends around 1850, but today there can be found many branches that can be traced up to present time by searching the internet.
About Elias Robert Alcenius
Elias Robert Alcenius, born on July 10 1796 in Lappfjärd parish (Storå village), died April 10 1875 in Lappfjärd, Finnish clergyman and genealogist, known as the Finnish genealogical father.
Alcenius served as Chaplain in 1826-56 Kalajoki, after which he was Vicar of Lappfjärd. In 1850 he published Genealogy Sursilliana. It took Alcenius almost twenty years to compile the information. Printing took three years. The first version of Genealogia Sursilliana had 345 pages. Alcenius was the first in Scandinavia to extend the genealogy to include peasant families. Genealogy Sursilliana is probably for the first time in history, dealing a huge amount of non-noble with the same or even greater precision than ever prince and noble sets.
Alcenius is buried at the new cementary in Lappfjärd. The parish of Lappfjärd is located on the western coast of Finland in Southern Ostrobothnia between Kristinestad and Björneborg.
Genealogia Sursilliana later
In 1959 Atte Bernhard Kalajoki (1914 - 2004) republished the Alcenius Sursilliana as a Faximile "look-alike" version. Atte was also the chairman of one of the largest branches of the Sursill family, the Calamnius Family Association first from the founding year 1950 to 1955, then a second period from 1980 to 1985. I have the honour to be the present chairman of this large branch.
Lasse Holm