There’s [...]]]> Sorry for the lack of posting the past couple of weeks – I was making my way home from Latvia, and then, just four days after getting home, moved across the province. I’m mostly settled in now, and starting to process everything I learned and found while I was researching in the archives in Latvia.

There’s just so much that I learned, so much that I could share, that I don’t know where to start!

What do you, my readers, want to read about? Is it surnames and the history of them that you’re interested in? 20th century census records? 19th century revision lists? Military records? Land records? I’ll talk about them all eventually, but if there’s something specific that you want to hear about, do let me know, and I’ll get to it as soon as I can!

Now, these indexes are simple – family name and number, and the farm names and numbers they appear in on the specified estate. More information is on the Revision Lists page.

The revision lists I’ve indexed aren’t available online yet, but they might be [...]]]> So the new project that I’ve been working on – revision list indexes!

Now, these indexes are simple – family name and number, and the farm names and numbers they appear in on the specified estate. More information is on the Revision Lists page.

The revision lists I’ve indexed aren’t available online yet, but they might be soon. For now, you’ll need to consult the records onsite at the Latvian State Historical Archives. I’ve provided the fond/abstract/item information you will need, as well as the microform call number.

Today I’ve added the list for the Dikļi estate. Let me know if you’re related to family 56 – Graumann. They’re my ancestors too!

How many indexes there will be in all, I can’t say. Depends on how much free time I have while I’m at the archives this week – this is my last week. When I get home next week, I’ll start into posts about the whirlwind of the past month and all of the different kinds of records I’ve been working with. I’ll be making these posts in amongst moving – I’m moving four days after I get home!

What I can say though, is I’ve been learning so much and I’ll have lots to share with you all when I [...]]]> Sorry about things being quiet here lately – I’ve been busy at work in the archives during the week, and on weekends going out to different places in Latvia to visit where ancestors lived.

What I can say though, is I’ve been learning so much and I’ll have lots to share with you all when I have a moment, and then more when I get home.

If you’re wondering about Project Updates, don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about them, but my travel netbook doesn’t have the ability to automatically include Latvian diacritics, and copy/pasting them into large documents is an incredibly time-consuming experience. Expect these to return mid-August, once I’ve returned home and moved to a new city.

I’ll also have a few special surprises in store when I have a moment – hopefully the first should be up by the end of the weekend!

What [...]]]> I will be traveling to Latvia this July! This will be an opportunity for me to do some more research and gain more familiarity with the different resources available. I will be going back to school in the fall, so I won’t be able to make another trip like this for at least two years.

What does this mean for you, my readers? I can offer various lookup services for different records, maybe even take pictures of ancestral homes. We can also discuss research services, but that will be on a case-by-case basis. Research services would start at $20/hour, specific record lookups would be a flat rate, depending on the type of record.

If you’re looking to plan your own research trip to Latvia at some point, but want to know ahead of time what specific records are available for your parish (for example, population registers, different types of estate documents, etc.), I can also offer a survey of sources. I will examine the specific fonds pertaining to your parish to compile a specific listing of the documents available, as well as more general fonds to find items of interest for your parish. This service is available for $25 for rural parishes or small towns. Larger towns and cities will be on a case-by-case basis.

Interested? Email me: and we can discuss details (you will need to type the address into your email program, I have it here as a gif to prevent spam). If there is something you’re interested in that I haven’t mentioned, let me know and we can see if we can work something out. Any details you provide to me about yourself, your family and your research will be kept completely confidential. If you want to know more about me, I have provided some more information on the “About” page, and you can always email me to ask any questions you may have. All prices are in Canadian dollars and taxes may apply.

More posts on history and migration to come soon! While in Latvia I also plan to go to the National Library, where there could also be a variety of useful sources for family history researchers. I’ll keep you posted on what I find there as well.

In honour of that overdue milestone, I’d like to open the floor to reader suggestions. What would you like me to write about? Are there periods of Latvian history you’d like me to explore in more depth? A record type [...]]]> So I’ve had this blog for about seven months now. I completely missed my six-month blogiversary!

In honour of that overdue milestone, I’d like to open the floor to reader suggestions. What would you like me to write about? Are there periods of Latvian history you’d like me to explore in more depth? A record type you’d like me to detail? Would you like to see parish profiles, discussions about historical buildings, or something else along those lines?

Leave me a comment and let me know what you’d like to see! I’ll also be making some announcements at the beginning of June to complement the new site additions for the month. I’ve been busy, but they’re not quite ready to launch yet!

J.M. of Tracing My Roots, in the post The Effects of War, describes the lingering effects of war after the battles are over, and how in this particular case they influenced the life of a [...]]]> Welcome, everyone, to the 28th edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy! This month’s topic was War Stories.

J.M. of Tracing My Roots, in the post The Effects of War, describes the lingering effects of war after the battles are over, and how in this particular case they influenced the life of a German ancestor living in the Netherlands.

In her post Ray, Karen of Ancestor Soup writes about the peacetime and wartime activities of Flight Officer Raymond Christensen, a WW2 pilot, as told to his friends back home in the USA.

Next, Brenda Dougall Merriman talks about the experiences of her ancestor Otto during the 1905 Revolution in the Latvian provinces of the Russian Empire.

Al of Al’s Polish-American Genealogy Research discusses how the Franco-Prussian War Impacts the Wierzba’s from Lipusz, and how this may have influenced their decision to emigrate to the United States.

Finally, in the post War Stories, Antra of Discovering Latvian Roots recounts her great-aunt’s memories of a childhood spent in rural Russia to avoid the battles of World War I being fought in Latvian territory.

That concludes this month’s carnival! May’s edition will be hosted by J.M. of Tracing My Roots, and the topic will be “Religion, religion as part of the life of an ancestor, sources about an ancestor that are connected to their religion, basically anything to do with religion would be accepted.” The deadline for submissions is May 14th, and the edition will be posted on May 17th. Submissions can be made on the Carnival’s BlogCarnival submissions page.

The deadline to submit was officially yesterday, but I realized today that I had totally forgotten to mention the Carnival here on my blog this month. Oops! I thought I had, but it turns out [...]]]> The 28th edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy will be hosted right here on Discovering Latvian Roots!

The deadline to submit was officially yesterday, but I realized today that I had totally forgotten to mention the Carnival here on my blog this month. Oops! I thought I had, but it turns out that I hadn’t.

The Carnival was going to be posted on Wednesday, but if you still want to get a submission in, I’ll delay posting the Carnival until Friday. Just let me know! You can send your submission URLs on the subject of War Stories to admin at celmina dot com.

Thanks!

The “Ancestor Approved” Award is an award in the genealogy blogger community. It was awarded to me by Joanne of Keeper of the Records. Thank you so much! It means a lot that my blog is getting noticed by other genealogy bloggers.

Accepting this award also means that one is asked to “list ten things you [...]]]>

The “Ancestor Approved” Award is an award in the genealogy blogger community. It was awarded to me by Joanne of Keeper of the Records. Thank you so much! It means a lot that my blog is getting noticed by other genealogy bloggers.

Accepting this award also means that one is asked to “list ten things you have learned about any of your ancestors that has surprised, humbled, or enlightened you”, as well as “pass the award along to ten other bloggers who you feel are doing their ancestors proud.”

So here we go!

1. After I really got into my research, I was surprised to learn just how many resources on Latvian genealogy there really are out there. When I was younger I used to think church records were the extent of it – I was happy to learn there is much much more!
2. I am humbled by the wartime experiences of my grandparents, and frequently remind myself that if they were able to flee across a continent filled with war and chaos to find safety and security in a new land where they built successful new lives from scratch, that I can do anything I put my mind to.
3. It has been enlightening to see the historical progression of society in Latvia from rural roots to an urbanized existence – but I am still seeking to find what specifically it was that brought two of my ancestors to the “big city” (Rīga) from their homes in the rural north of the country.
4. I was surprised to discover that three of my great-grandparents were influential in their occupational fields in the inter-war period in Latvia – one as an assistant director of a division of the postal savings bank, one as a leader in the counter-intelligence agency and one as a justice of the peace and member of Parliament. The former even had an entry in the Latvian “Who’s Who”. All three were also from rural farming families.
5. It has been very enlightening to be able to read the Saeima (Latvian parliament) minutes, to learn more about my great-grandfather Augusts Lūkins’ specific work and speeches that he made. Through those minutes and both his judicial and police employment files, I’ve been able to get a very complete picture of his life and career.
6. I was surprised to find out that my great-grandfather Pēteris Celmiņš, his wife Anna (nee Liepa) and their children Juris and Skaidrīte moved half a dozen times beween 1924 and 1927. All bar one of these homes were within 5km of one another. I still do not know why, since they both had steady, well-paid employment during this time.
7. I’ve learned so much from the wide variety of documents I’ve had to deal with. It has been enlightening to be able to read records not only in modern-style Latvian, but in German, Russian and old-style Latvian writing. Modern Latvian writing only came about in the 1920s, and some people continued to use the old style into the 1940s.
8. I was surprised to discover that it is possible to find distant relatives through the Internet, even for such a small ethnic group as Latvians. In the past couple of months, I’ve made contact with two distant relatives, one from each side of my family, both descendants of my great-grandparents’ siblings.
9. I am constantly surprised by the wide breadth of surnames that I discover while perusing church records. Latvians may have been a primarily agrarian people, but boy, did they ever have some creativity when it came to coming up with names!
10. I am humbled by the responses that I get to my blog and my various projects, and am pleased that there are others out there who are researching their Latvian roots that have been helped by the information that I’ve provided. I never expected to get as much of a response to my blog as I have!

I only have five nominations, since many of the genealogy blogs I read have already been nominated:

• Al’s Polish-American Genealogy Research
• Brenda Dougall Merriman
• Nick Gombash’s Genealogy Blog
• Hellenic Genealogy Geek
• Trace Your Dutch Roots

Thank you, everyone, for reading! While work has ended up taking up a lot of my time, over the past weekends I have been able to churn out some record and surname work for the Surname Project and the Record Project. Stay tuned for project updates coming in the next few days!