Editing Urho Kekkonen (section)

===Family history===
The Kekkonens are an old [[Savonia (historical province)|Savonia]]n family. The ancestors of Urho Kekkonen most likely settled in the Savonia region before the 16th century. Although it is not known where the Kekkonens came to Savonia from, there has been speculation that they are from Karelia as people with the name were known to have lived in certain settlements of the [[Karelian Isthmus]] for centuries. Kekkonen himself thought it possible that the family might instead originate from Western Finland, for example from [[Tavastia (historical province)|Tavastia]], where there have been place names connected to their surname from as early as the 15th century. His seventh-great-grandfather Tuomas Kekkonen (born ca. 1630) is first mentioned in documents in [[Pieksämäki]] in 1673. He was probably from either [[Kangasniemi]] or [[Joroinen]].<ref name="kekkoset">Kekkonen, Urho: ''[http://www.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/11645/TMP.objres.1403.html?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Kekkoset, itäsuomalainen suku]''.</ref>

Twelve generations of Urho Kekkonen's ancestors were peasants from eastern Finland. The paternal side of Kekkonen's family practised [[Slash-and-burn|slash-and-burn agriculture]] and the maternal side stayed on their own site. Kekkonen's paternal grandfather Eenokki was part of a landless group grown in the 19th century and lived on temporary work and working as a [[farmworker]].<ref name="nuori7">Uino, Ari (ed.): ''Nuori Urho: Urho Kekkosen Kajaanin-vuodet 1911–1921''. [[Otava (publisher)|Otava]] 1999. {{ISBN|951-1-15992-5}}, p. 7.</ref>

After serving in several houses Eenokki Kekkonen married Anna-Liisa Koskinen. They had four sons, named Taavetti, Johannes, Alpertti and Juho. Juho Kekkonen, the youngest son of the family, who had gone travelling from the family's home in Korvenmökki in the village of Koivujärvi, was the father of Urho Kekkonen. Aatu Pylvänäinen, Urho Kekkonen's maternal grandfather, who worked as a farmer at the Tarkkala farm in [[Kangasniemi]], married Amanda Manninen in the summer of 1878 when she was only 16 years old. Their children, three daughters and three sons, were Emilia, Elsa, Siilas, Tyyne, Eetu, and Samuel.<ref name="nuori7"/>

As the son of a poor family, Juho Kekkonen had to go to work in the forest and ended up at a log working ground in Kangasniemi in 1898. Emilia Pylvänäinen herded cattle there, on the shores of the Haahkala lands, where Juho Kekkonen worked with other loggers. The two youngsters got to know each other and they married in 1899. The couple moved to [[Otava (village)|Otava]], where Juho Kekkonen got a job at the Koivusaha sawmill of [[Halla Oy]]. He was later appointed the head of forestry work and caretaker of the logging business.<ref name="nuori7"/>

The couple moved to [[Pielavesi]] along with the working grounds, where Juho Kekkonen bought a smoke hut which he later repaired and expanded into a proper house. He built a chimney in the house shortly before the birth of his first son Urho. Because of the beautiful [[alder]]s growing behind the house, the house became known as ''Lepikon torppa'' ("[[Croft (land)|croft]] of alders"). There was a [[smoke sauna]] in the yard, where Urho Kekkonen was born on 3 September 1900.{{Citation needed|date=December 2023|reason=Citation needed that UKK was born in a savusauna.}} The family lived in Lepikon torppa for six years and Urho Kekkonen's sister Siiri was born in 1904. The family moved along with Juho Kekkonen's forestry work to [[Kuopio]] in 1906 and to [[Lapinlahti]] in 1908. The family had to live modestly but did not suffer from poverty. The youngest child of the family, [[Jussi Kekkonen|Jussi]], was born in 1910.<ref name="nuori7"/>