When Marjorie set out to learn more about her family history, she thought she already knew who her grandfather was. Her mother’s birth certificate, baptism record, and even the 1931 Canadian census all pointed to the same man: Harold Benson, an electrician living in Montreal. Although Harold was not married to Marjorie’s maternal grandmother, he was consistently listed as the father of her child.
But something about the story didn’t quite add up.
For one, Harold was listed as being born in England, the son of English parents. Yet Marjorie’s DNA results showed a strong connection to Finland—about 30% of her ancestry. That was far too much to ignore. Could it be that her family’s story had been misunderstood—or perhaps deliberately altered—nearly a century ago?
The Trail Begins in Montreal, 1931
The census of 1931 shows Harold Benson living with Marjorie’s grandmother, Clara Whitfield, and their infant daughter, Irene (Marjorie’s mother). He was an electrician in the paper mill industry. Family stories suggested he died in a tragic mining accident not long after Irene was born, but searches of accident records turned up nothing.
Meanwhile, just a few blocks away, another man appeared in the same census: a Finnish immigrant named Harold Simonson who was also an electrician. He lived in a small apartment with a roommate—Carl Niemi, a fellow Finn.
Two men, both electricians, both named Harold, both enumerated a few blocks from each other in Montreal. Coincidence? Or was there a deeper connection?
Following the DNA
Marjorie’s closest DNA matches on her mother’s side connected her not to England, but to extended Finnish families. As the research progressed, the surname Lauhakangas consistently appeared. It linked a large cluster of Marjorie’s matches to a set of common ancestors in rural Finland in the 1800s.
The strongest theory that emerged was this: Marjorie’s true grandfather was not Harold Benson (aka Harry Simonson)—but his roommate, Carl (“Charlie”) Niemi, the Finnish electrician who shared a flat with Harry Simonson.
Carl had come to Canada from Finland in the 1920s. Records show that in 1941, a decade after Irene’s birth, he married a Finnish woman named Elsa Korhonen in Montreal. His mother’s name was listed as Tekla Lauhakangas—the same surname that appeared over and over again in Marjorie’s DNA connections.
A Finnish Legacy
If this theory were correct, then Harry Simonson’s roommate, Carl Niemi, was likely Marjorie’s biological grandfather, and her family story stretches back to Finland, not England. The DNA matches fit the puzzle: Marjorie’s connection to a distant cousin, Katherine Olson, was exactly the right amount for them to share great-great-grandparents through the Lauhakangas line.
Suddenly, the pieces make sense. The unexplained Finnish DNA. The mysterious “Harold Benson” who seemed to vanish from later records. The neighbouring Finn named Harold Simonson who may have been mistakenly—or perhaps intentionally—recorded as Irene’s birth father. And Harold’s roommate, Carl Niemi, whose genetic heritage linked him to Marjorie through her Montreal-born mother.
The Road Ahead
Like many family mysteries, this one will need a bit more work. More research into Finnish records, and DNA testing of Carl Niemi’s descendants, will likely provide the best possible evidence that Carl was Irene’s father. But for Marjorie, the story has already shifted:
Her mother’s real story wasn’t about an Englishman lost in a mining accident—it was about a Finnish immigrant who came to Montreal seeking opportunity, and whose story became entwined with hers.
And thanks to DNA, an untold history has finally been revealed.
? Stories like Marjorie’s show how DNA can uncover forgotten chapters of family history. Sometimes the truth is hiding just a few blocks away—or across the ocean.
This post is provided for illustrative purposes. Some details have been modified from the original case report. All names in this post have been changed except the Lauhakangas surname.