Accounts of Endowment Funds

[Lynette1]

I found some records in the file “lahoitusvarojen” or Accounts of Endowment Funds for the Alajärvi Parish.
I found my ancestors on some of the records and can’t find a description of what this file actually is. I am thinking that it is the money that the families donated to the church. Is this correct? Also if it is correct, the money seems to be donated in Swedish currency with three columns. Are these columns riksdaler, marks and öre?
Were the Finnish people required to tithe? How did they determine how much money they had to donate, if this is actually what they were doing?
Thank you for any information you can provide.
Lynette
https://digihakemisto.net/item/12715916 ... 360256/111

[Kimpula]

Were the Finnish people required to tithe?

No, but *farms* (not people) had to pay taxes (*). At that time (1835) Finnish Lutheran Church
was a department of the state and in addition to religioud matters, took care of things like the upkeep
of roads and pridges, schools, parsonages, and paying the salaries of government emplpyees (like priests).

Civil administration was separated from church administration in 1865.

(*) "Farm" in kirkonkirjat does not mean the same thing than "farm" (maatila) today.

[Lynette1]

Thank you for your reply.
I am still a bit confused. By farm does that mean the entire farm - the Anttila farm No 6 is six pages in the Communion Book - or each individual farmer? And how did they determine how much money the farm had to pay? What would happen if the farm could not pay the money?
Thank you,
Lynette

[Kimpula]

>>>By farm does that mean the entire farm - the Anttila farm No 6 is six pages in the Communion Book

Yes. That six page long "farm" (and other "farms" in kirkonkirjat) is an administrative unit of tax collection.


>>>And how did they determine how much money the farm had to pay?

Farms paid by their mantal. If the government collected X barrels of grain from each mantal, a farm of 11/128 mantal paid X*(11/128) barrels, and so on.


>>>What would happen if the farm could not pay the money?

What happens if you do not pay your property tax?

[Lynette1]

Thank you for further explaining it to me!
Thank you,
Lynette