About Joelle Steele
I became interested in genealogy and family history in 1974 when my parents started visiting their families in Finland and Italy, bringing back photos and other family information.
In the mid-1980s, my mother brought back books from Terjärv, Finland that contained the church records from that parish dating back to the 1400s. The records in those books were obtained by Verner Edvin Andersson Lindsjö-Kaitajärvi, the father of Helena Birgitta Lindsjö, the wife of Christer Hans-Erik “Hasse” Andtbacka. Helena and Hasse were my distant cousins, and they put the records into book form and later onto a CD. I worked with them from 1994 to 2016 to update and correct typographical errors in the database. When they visited me while I was living in Monterey, California in 2002, they asked me to take over managing the database when they could no longer do it, and to make it available for anyone to research. So, I’ve been doing that ever since, updating and adding information, and making a free GEDCOM file available on this website.
I used those books to trace my lineage back to my earliest maternal ancestor, my 15th great-grandfather, Ragvald Koiraniemi (1430-?). On another visit to Finland, my mother brought back a copy of A History of the Bredbacka Home in Terjärv, a short, typed history written ca. 1910 by my great-great-uncle, Karl Johan Berg (11/27/1861-06/02/1957). My mother translated most of it into English, and for the things she wasn’t able to translate, I got help from a cousin’s wife, Lisbet Nyman (Ståhl), in Finland, and from a Swedish translator at UCLA. I greatly expanded Berg’s history with articles collected by another distant cousin, Larry Werelius (11/20/1943- ), from numerous cousins in the United States and Finland. In 2005, I wrote, edited, and published the first edition of An Illustrated History of the Steele, Furu, and Forström Families in Finland & America, in its 6th edition as of 2022.
In the early 1970s, my father visited Italy and later hired a genealogist to trace his ancestry there. The genealogist traced my father’s paternal lineage back to my 7th great-grandfathers, Clemenzo Muggetti (Abt. 1630-?) and Gaspar DeAmici (Abt. 1630-?). And he traced my father’s maternal lineage to Francesco Bozzini (1800-?). Years later, I hired three different genealogists – including the son of the genealogist my father had hired – to fill in some gaps. Then, with some assistance from my brother, Chris Martelli, I wrote and published A Brief History of the Bozzini, Crosetti, & Martelli Families in Italy and America, in its 3rd edition as of 2022.
Over the years, I studied genealogy and the history of my own family. In 1992, I began providing ancestral research assistance to others. For five years, I was one of the editors and the production person for The Quarterly, the newsletter of the Swedish-Finn Historical Society, and for 12 years I taught genealogy classes at The Evergreen Green State College, South Puget Sound Community College, Tacoma Community College, Pierce College (three campuses), South Seattle College, and Centralia College in Washington state. I have also taught genealogical research methods through senior centers, libraries, and genealogical associations in Washington and California.
Privacy Policy
Joelle Steele does not collect or share any information about you on this website or any of Joelle Steele’s other websites. She does not use cookies, but any embedded videos viewed through third-party YouTube may do so. Your payment information is available only to PayPal via their shopping cart. All Joelle Steele has are email notifications from PayPal stating what you have purchased and where to ship it.
