ABOUT JOELLE STEELE

AND SWEDISH FINN PUBLICATIONS

Swedish Finn Publications is one of several Web site businesses owned by Joelle Steele and Joelle Steele Enterprises, founded in 1983. Joelle Steele is a writer, artist, and publisher who has been selling her products and services online since 1994.

Joelle became interested in her family history in the early 1980s when her mother, Norma Elisabeth Steele Martelli, brought home some genealogical books from Terjärv, Finland, along with a family history written by her great-uncle, Karl Johan Berg. Norma began translating the history into English and Joelle began taking classes at the Regional Family History Center (formerly the Family History Center) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in West Los Angeles, California. There, she learned a variety of research methods which now extend into the use of the Internet, and she also learned how to document family stories. After three years of using a 9-ft x 4-ft hand-written family tree chart that hung in her hallway, she purchased Family Tree Maker software and entered all the information into the computer. Today, she has merged and expanded that database to contain the records of more than 60,000 Swedish Finns.

Joelle has written several articles and a few books on family history-related topics, including a 200+ page illustrated history of her Swedish-Finn ancestors and a 60-page history of her Italian ancestors. She spent five years as one of the editors of the Swedish Finn Historical Society's Quarterly newsletter. In 1988, she began teaching people how to research and write their family histories, and today she offers those classes on Saturdays at colleges throughout the South Puget Sound area of Washington state. She also digitally restores antique photographs (www.photorestorics.com).