Citaat:Traditional tale in our family states that my ancestor, Peder Dam, arrived in Finland in 1560ies to participate in setting up the iron mill in Mustio, which was founded based on an order from the Swedish king Gustav Vasa. 
This suggests he was an iron worker in Belgium flamish area, because it was common to "import" craftsmen from Belgium to Scandinavia to set up new iron mills. History books states this. 
Our farm is quite close to Mustio at a sea shore of Finnish gulf at that time. Now it is dry farming land following the rise of land that has continued since the ice age 10000 years ago. Sea shore is now about five kilometers from our farm.
Maybe typical ancient iron works areas in Belgium can be suspected as his original location. These works were typically founded close to iron ore sources.
Whether his surname was Dam or Damme is difficult to know. Such detail can have been lost in the family tale.  However the village, in which our farm is, is still named Dams village as it has been since end of 17th century. This indicates his name was perhaps Dam.
Our family is now accurately traced back to 1697 but I cannot reach further back in Finland, because all chuch registers of population were burned at that time during the so called " Big Unrest", one of the regular grim wars between Sweden and Russia. Finland was part of Sweden at that time.
My ambition is now to take a step back to our ancestor 130 years earlier, if possible, accepting the fact that those 130 years remain "blank" in between.