Every design for Mäntsälä

Around the turn of the twentieth century, half of the matches struck in Finland came from Mäntsälä, where seven factories turned them out, the largest on the grounds of the Saari manor. Manors were the backbone of the place. Most grew from land granted to noblemen, almost every village had one, and the crofters who worked the fields could only claim the land as their own once new legislation allowed it. Alexander I came to stay with Ulla Möllersvärd at the manor in the centre, a romance later retold by Mika Waltari, and the Mäntsälä rebellion of the Lapua Movement began at the Ohkola workers' hall.

Geography made Mäntsälä. The rivers Mustijoki and Mäntsälänjoki formed a route between Häme and the Gulf of Finland, and the first settlers came along them. Today the route is the motorway and the railway between Helsinki and Lahti, and the population has grown fast. Mäntsälä is one of three municipalities in Uusimaa with no Swedish name, and its coat of arms shows a moose head for the old hunting lands and clover for the fields. Every church it has had stood on Kirkonmäki, Church Hill.

If your family's story runs through one of these villages, you will know which manor's fields you grew up beside, and where on this map to point when you tell it.