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After Centuries of Tolpos residing in Scandinavia, a young 12 year old Carl August Tolpo came to America. By 1915 he was working his farm on Victory Township near Ludington Michigan with his wife Anna Christine. Pictured below are 5 of their 7 children, standing left to right are Walter, Carl and Clarence; kneeling are George and Alice.
TOLPO FAMILY NAME DISCOVERY
The word TOLPO means different things in many different languages. Entering "tolpo" into Google translator for various languages will produce results meaning “crowd” in Indo-Aryan and Slavic languages, “get started” in Telugu, or even “wolfpaw” in Kannada. In North Korea there is a place called “Tolpo-Ri”. In most languages Tolpo means “Tolpo”. A name.
There is today a large family of Tolpos in the Philippines. There are Italian, Spanish, and as we know Finnish Tolpos. In Scandinavia, surnames proper did not exist until the 1200s -1400s. Instead, patronymics were used. In Sweden, the patronymic ending is –sson and -sdotter, e.g. Karlsson or Karlsdotter ("Karl's son", "Karl's daughter"). These were gradually replaced by permanent surnames starting with the nobility and clergy, followed by the middle classes. The vast majority of people only adopted surnames in the late 19th century, often taking patronymic surnames. Our late consulting genealogist, Jarl Pousar, thought the name “Tolpo” was developed from a derivation of the old Swedish word “stolpaga” which referred to the cocking stirrup of a crossbow. The name came from people living around Turku, Finland before the 1500’s. Imagine a gent traveling through and joining a local family. Such a fellow may have created a surname to fit his identity needs. It just happened to become “Tolpo”.
There were many relatives with the Tolpo name in Turku, as well as in Finland. In Turku one can distinguish between two clusters with this name among the confusion of Tolpos. Each was a consequence of people taking names from their own farms. None of the descendants from Tolppa hemman in Tattulla village of Uskela parish, can however, be proved. The first family cluster, who in the beginning often wrote himself Tålpo, branched out into a family of priests and a family of higher bourgeoisie, of which the former became extinct in this 20th century, the latter in the 18th century. The second family cluster insignificant and less well known, consisted for the most part of lower bourgeoisie and does not seem to have any connection with the first family cluster. From this descends the now living family of Tolpos (landowners in western Uusimaa, church builders, priests). Still there is tradition within it that states it belonged to the former Tolpo family. Another family Tolpo lived in Viborg and led the noble family Losköld their origin from this and yet another in Tornio. It is probable that they were not in any connection with the Turku families of the same name.
Amid this confusion and to honor the living, we have various materials, the genealogy by Jarl Pousar, photos, memoirs, and news clippings. In this website at www.Tolpo.org we build our story and it will contain these and other materials. All the while, we try to protect the identities of the living.
This is a loosely organized effort because the information is always changing, and new parts are found as contributors become interested. The Tolpos go back to the 1500's and this website will always be a work in progress.
Please feel free to become part of our history by submitting your story in any format.
Contact me anytime:
Vincent Tolpo, PO box 134, Shawnee, CO 80475
TolpoFamily@Gmail.Com, Cell: 720-696-1751 for texting/voice , Phone: 303-838-6106
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