Purmo

Parish History

• ‘At the end of the 1500’s and 1600’s the southern Överpurmo village grew.  Settlers took up 17 new farms south of Lassfolk.  People had to travel a very long way to church in Pedersöre.  From the Vilobacka homestead it was around 27 miles on very bad roads.  No wonder the people of Purmo asked for their own priest and church by 1730.’ ⁴
• Around 1770 (40 years later) they got permission to fund their own chapel parish. ³ As a parish chapel, they remained part of the Pedersöre parish. ⁴
• In 1867, Purmo became an independent parish. The Purmo parish included the old southern ֭Överpurmo village and 5 farms from northern, Nederpurmo village.  The other part of Nederpurmo stayed in the Pedersöre parish as they were closer the Pedersöre church. ³

Parish Records

Because parish Communion records are listed by farm name and because farm names often were used as a part of a person’s name, it is interesting to note the following farms.  Many of these farms are labelled on the parish map displayed below.

The villages and farms of Purmo were recorded in T.W. Karsten’s work,   Svesk Bygd I Osterbotten: Nu Och Fordom. ²  Purmo Parish Communion records were not used to confirm these findings.