Reclaiming Icelandic ancestors, one photo at a time

When Blair Swanson tries to identify the images of people who have been lost to time, Facebook is his greatest tool.

Each month, he posts dozens of historical photos of Icelandic immigrants to Facebook groups in the hope that people will be able to identify them.

The Winnipegger works with Icelandic Roots, a global non-profit that traces the family line of more than 850,000 people of Icelandic heritage from around the world.

Swanson runs the organization’s Unknown Photos Project, which tries to uncover details about the lives of the people depicted in pictures sent in by the Icelandic community.

Swanson said each time someone is identified, they’re “giving that person back their life.”

“Once you get their name, then you want to find out what ship did they come over on, when did they come over, were they a farmer, were they a fisherman? Just find the trail of their life,” he said.

The story of the photos — which often date between 1870 and 1920 — takes anywhere from a few days to a few months to unravel.

He said he posts them to Facebook groups that have members across North America and Iceland, making them an effective tool to discovering the identities.

“Once I post the photo, people just jump on it and start debating who it looks like,” he said.

Once there’s a name, it takes anywhere from a few hours to days to cross-reference the information and verify the identity.

“Once that name is given, it’s just the start of everything,” said Swanson.

Since the project started in 2023, more than 300 photos have been uploaded and the people depicted in 69 of them have been identified.

The project was started by George Freeman and Kristy Marsten, but they had to step away for personal issues. They had trouble finding a long-term replacement until Swanson joined in 2024, said Sunna Furstenau, founder and president of Icelandic Roots.

“We were so happy because he’s just doing such a fabulous job with it,” she said.

Along with Facebook, she said Blair and other volunteers use their newsletters and database to figure out identities.

She said volunteers know faces very well and can often figure what family line someone is from just by looking at them.

“It’s a lot of detective work and genealogy work and just so much dedication,” she said.

Keeping track of family lineage is very important in Icelandic culture, said Ryan Eyford, executive director of the New Icelandic Heritage Museum in Gimli.

“It’s a prominent Icelandic pastime, people keep track of their cousin relationships even 150 years after people immigrated,” he said.

Outside of Iceland, Manitoba has the largest Icelandic community in the world, about 31,000 people, as reported by Statistic Canada’s 2021 census.

Eyford said 150 years ago, the Canadian government appealed to Icelanders to immigrate here and the practice continued until the First World War.

During this period 20,000 people left Iceland, with most settling in Manitoba.

Icelanders have moved to other parts of Canada, but the Manitoba community remains strong and is proud of its heritage as evidenced by annual events such as this weekend’s Icelandic Festival in Gimli.

Eyford said the work Icelandic Roots does is very important.

“It’s good to try to identify these photos. It can be really challenging and it takes a lot of research to do it, so it’s good there’s a group working on that,” he said.

People can submit photos through the Icelandic Roots via icelandicroots.com.

tiago.resko@freepress.mb.ca