Since I’m hosting this edition of the Carnival, I got to choose the topic. I chose War Stories. When I thought of this topic, I initially [...]]]> [This post is for the 28th edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy, which will be hosted right here. The Carnival post will be up on Friday!]

Since I’m hosting this edition of the Carnival, I got to choose the topic. I chose War Stories. When I thought of this topic, I initially had ideas to talk about the various experience of my family members in World War II, since this was a defining moment of my family’s history, since over the course of the war, all four of my grandparents left Latvia, spent several years in displaced persons camps, and then came to Canada.

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I should tell a different story – the narrative of my family’s history focuses on World War II so often, it would be interesting to tell a different story for a change.

So instead I will talk about one branch of my family’s experience during World War I and the Russian Revolution. These stories have been told to me by my great-aunt, who is now 98 years old.

When World War I started, Latvia was still a part of the Russian Empire. My great-aunt was three years old, living in Krustpils, which was then part of the Vitebsk guberniya, with her parents Jūle (nee Štelmahers) and Brencis Līcītis. Because of the war front raging through Latvia, the family moved further east, and settled near Rzhev, a city approximately 200km west of Moscow.

The three lived with a Russian family by the surname Kislev in a manor house. The family had two daughters, Vera and Zoya. It is living here that my great-aunt learned to speak Russian, and took great pleasure in going to the local market as well as to the Orthodox church, even though the family was Lutheran. They were not the only Balts living in the area – other Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians had also moved to the Rzhev area to avoid the war.

But World War I was not the only war going on at the time. This was a time of political upheaval in Russia, which eventually led to the 1917 Revolution and the beginning of the Communist era. The family was opposed to Bolshevism early – my great-aunt remembers going with her father to listen to a speech that was given by a political party leader that was opposed to Lenin and his party. After the Bolshevik victory, she also remembers her mother arguing with a Communist about “workers” and what the party would do with people who were unable to work due to age or infirmity, and his response being less than satisfactory. When the Communists came asking how much they were paying in rent to the Kislevs, they lied and said a lower price than they were actually paying. They knew that otherwise the Kislevs would have had even more of their property expropriated for being “kulaks” (affluent farmers), even though they really didn’t have very much.

But the defining moment that showed the family precisely where the Bolsheviks went wrong and why their family would always remain opposed to Communism was when the Communist soldiers came to the village, took the grain stores and burned them in the town square, calling them “rich peoples’ food”. Instead of this grain that they had stored up, the people were given animal feed to eat.

World War I officially ended in 1918, but the following years were still filled with conflict in Eastern Europe, with the civil war in Russia between the various factions, as well as the wars of independence in the Baltics. While Latvia in declared independence on November 18, 1918, this wasn’t officially recognized until the early 1920s.

I’m not certain when exactly the family returned to Krustpils, but it would have been before the autumn of 1919, when my grandmother was born. The wars ended, and Latvia gained an independence that had been lost eight hundred years earlier.

In recounting this story, I’ve realized just how many of the details of this time period are a mystery to me, historically speaking – in Latvian Saturday school, we didn’t really study it. We learned about early Latvian history and the beginnings of German rule. We learned about the following periods of Swedish and Russian rule, and then about some of the Latvian writers of the late 19th century who started to inspire political movements of independence and nationalism. But we didn’t study the independence wars. We celebrated the 18th of November every year, acknowledging independence as being gained in 1918, and that from that day on people lived happily ever after until World War II broke out. The first I recall hearing about the independence wars was looking at some maps in my Latvian historical atlas that I acquired in my first year of Latvian Friday night high school, but I don’t recall ever discussing them in class.

So my mission for the next couple of months is to educate myself more on this time period. It was an important period of Latvian history, and it might hold the key to answering some questions about different types of access to various Latvian genealogical records. I will be sure to share my findings here!

For this edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy, I will be talking about the town of Krustpils, where both of my grandmothers lived for a time. My maternal grandmother [...]]]> [This post was written for the 27th edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy, hosted by Al's Polish-American Genealogy Research.]

For this edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy, I will be talking about the town of Krustpils, where both of my grandmothers lived for a time. My maternal grandmother was born there, and lived there throughout her childhood, while my paternal grandmother, Zenta Lūkina, lived there between 1925 and 1934, while her father Augusts was the local justice of the peace.

Krustpils is found on the north shore of the Daugava, at a midway point between Rīga and Daugavpils. The name “Krustpils” translates to “Cross Castle”. It is first mentioned in 1237 as being a place where the Bishop of Rīga built a castle. The name came from the cross formation of the castle.

In the modern day, Krustpils no longer exists as an independent entity – it was amalgamated with Jēkabpils, the larger town on the south shore of the Daugava in 1962. What I find intriguing about Krustpils in this regard is that even though the two towns were across the river from one another, they spent most of history in different administrative regions. During the time of the Russian Empire, Jēkabpils was in the Kurland guberniya, while Krustpils was in the Vitebsk guberniya – the Daugava river was a powerful dividing force.

This becomes quite important when it comes to genealogy, since serfdom was abolished at vastly different times – in Kurland guberniya it was abolished in 1817, while in Vitebsk guberniya only in 1861. This meant surnames were acquired at a later date as well – and took even longer to appear in church records consistently. I have been able to identify my great-grandmother Jūle’s birth record in 1874, but not all records in her year have surnames. The advantage is is that I clearly know where her family got their surname – Jūle’s father Indriķis was a craftsman who made wheels and wagons, and has the surname Štelmahers – from the German “Stellmacher”, meaning “wheelwright”. Occupational surnames are not particularly common in Latvia, so I’ve lucked out here! As I’ve mentioned before, the language of a surname in Latvia has no bearing on the ethnicity of its bearer – ethnic Latvians often had surnames of German or Russian origin.

Krustpils has always been a multiethnic town. It was inhabited by Balts for centuries, and Germans arrived with the Rīga bishop. Russians also settled in Krustpils, as did Jews. In 1935, Krustpils’ population was 53% Latvian, 35% Jewish, 12% other. For those doing Jewish research in Krustpils, Jewish Gen’s ShtetlLinks has a variety of information, including lists of Jewish residents. During the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878), Turkish prisoners of war were interned in Krustpils, and many remained when the war was over. My grandmother and great-aunt grew up just down the street from the local Russian Orthodox church. Across the river in Jēkabpils – named for Jakob von Kettler, a 17th century duke of Kurland – there is also a very brightly blue-painted Old Believer church. Russian Old Believers and Polish/Ukrainian Greek Catholics fled from Russian territories due to persecution in the 16th and 17th centuries, and many settled in the semi-independent Duchy of Kurland.

In this photograph, note the abovementioned Russian Orthodox church in the background. Note also the numerous Latvian flags – this picture was taken on the first Sunday of December, which is a designated remembrance day. By law, Latvian flags must be displayed on each of the eleven remembrance days, five of which, including this one, also require black ribbons of mourning tied alongside the flag.

Today, the town of Jēkabpils has approximately 29,000 inhabitants. Most refer to the area solely as Jēkabpils, since Jēkabpils was larger, but the train station, as it is on the Krustpils side of the river, is still the Krustpils railway station. There is a small cemetery on the Krustpils side, but it has mostly fallen into ruin, and most burials happen on the Jēkabpils side. My great-grandparents, along with several other members of my extended family, are buried at the Jēkabpils cemetery.

It’s a bit ironic – the ancestors that I have marriage records for are the ones [...]]]> Today’s prompt: Do you have marriage records for your grandparents or great-grandparents? Write a post about where they were married and when. Any family stories about the wedding day? Post a photo too if you have one.

It’s a bit ironic – the ancestors that I have marriage records for are the ones I don’t have photographs for, and vice versa.

Since everyone loves photographs, I’ll stick to talking about the marriages of the couples portrayed within them, though my knowledge of those weddings are slim.

These are my paternal grandparents, Zenta Lūkina and Juris Celmiņš, on their wedding day. They were married in 1943 in Latvia, but I don’t know the date, or where the wedding took place, though it was most likely in Rīga. They were 20 and 23. I had always thought that they met in displaced persons camps in Germany after the war, but then I learned I was wrong. I don’t know how they met. Both of their families were relatively well-off – Zenta’s father was a justice of the peace and former Member of Parliament, while Juris’ father was a bank director (though he may have been deceased by the time his son married, since he died in early 1943).

This photo is of the wedding of my great-grandparents Brencis Līcītis and Jūle Štelmahers, c. 1909. They are the couple in the middle of the second row – Brencis is to the left of Jūle (you can see barely make out the dark corsage on his jacket), and Jūle is in the white dress with the dark edges and flowers in her hair. They would have been married in Krustpils, but that is all I have in terms of details at the moment. Jūle’s parents, Indriķis Štelmahers and Ieva Lapiņa are on the left end of the same row – Indriķis is the blurred figure on the end, Ieva is the older woman in the striped dress. Brencis’ brother, Krišjānis, is on the left end of the third row, just above Indriķis. Ten people in this photograph, mostly people in the top row, remain unidentified.

I’m not sure how Brencis and Jūle met. I only know that Brencis must have moved to Krustpils sometime before 1897 (since he appears in the 1897 All-Russia Census records for Krustpils), while Jūle was born and grew up there. They married relatively late in life for the time period – Jūle was 35, while Brencis was 43. He made harmonicas and repaired other musical instruments. His brother was allegedly a musician in Paris around the turn of the century.

Does anyone know about the Paris music scene of the early 20th century? Ideas on where to start to look for information about musicians from the Russian Empire in that scene? He was apparently quite well-off, though I don’t know if that was due to an inheritance of some kind or an income from music. Thanks for any tips!

One of these people was Alma Kalniņa. Her grave marker is in the town cemetery of Jēkabpils. She was 34 years old. She is buried alongside five others who were also murdered by the [...]]]> When the Soviets invaded Latvia during the Second World War, they deported and/or murdered thousands of people from all walks of life.

One of these people was Alma Kalniņa. Her grave marker is in the town cemetery of Jēkabpils. She was 34 years old. She is buried alongside five others who were also murdered by the Soviets on June 27, 1941 – Jānis Strautiņš, Mārtiņš Rugājs, Mārtiņš Kazerovskis, Jānis Kudrašs and Valdemārs Arkliņš.

I have chosen Alma’s grave marker because she is the one that my family has a connection to. She was the secretary for my great-grandfather Augusts Lūkins, a local judge. Family stories tell me that she had been shot and tied up with barbed wire. Her body was found in a swamp.

This was not my family’s only experience of Soviet brutality. One of my great-grandfathers, Arvīds Francis, was also murdered by the Soviets. I will tell his story in a later edition of “Bringing Out the Great-Grandfathers”. Many other family members also disappeared, and are probably buried in unmarked graves somewhere in Russia.

To me, this grave marker represents more than one woman, but all of the lost family members of mine who have no grave markers of their own.

The form format is predictable, even if the languages in the headers seem to change – the Krustpils headers are solely in [...]]]> I have had a bit of time now to look at some of the Latvian records for the 1895 All-Russia Census, though I am still on holiday. Just can’t keep away from the genealogy!

The form format is predictable, even if the languages in the headers seem to change – the Krustpils headers are solely in Russian, but in some Riga areas, the headers are in German, Russian and Latvian (pre-spelling reform, so sometimes difficult to puzzle out).

For the most part, my work has been with the records for Krustpils, to try and place ages/birthplaces for some of my maternal great-grandparents.

While browsing these records, I have encountered many surnames that I had not yet encountered in this region. This is due to the fact that the majority of people in this region at this time were Jewish, and my previous experience with records of this area has only been with Lutheran church records. While I am used to how Latvian names are usually written in Russian, this is my first experience working with Jewish names, so I am not entirely certain as to how well they translate or transliterate into Russian. I am given to understand that many Jews of this time period spoke Russian, so perhaps it is a question more of how well the names translate or transliterate into English, but I will need to study this history a bit more to be able to comment on the accuracy of Jewish names in this census.

Like many other census records, these start with the usual fields: name, gender, relationship to head of household, age, marital status (columns one to five). Column six is a bit more unique to this census – estate and condition. Since most people lived on manorial estates – even if still nominally free – these were still important identifying characteristics. Column seven asks whether or not the person was born there (that is, the place of census), and if not, where they were born.

Column eight is a bit of a puzzle – neither the German, Russian or Latvian text is particularly clear – I can’t find the key German or Russian words in my dictionaries, and the Latvian, being in pre-standardized spelling, is difficult to decipher – I think it may mean either “previous places of residence” or “place of parents’ residence”. Googling seems to give indications that this could be a “registration place” for an event of some sort, probably the birth. But this doesn’t resemble what I can draw from the Latvian text, so I’m not sure. Column nine is clearer – is this the person’s permanent residence?

I *think* column ten asks for the ages of people not currently there, and of people staying there for a time. What this means, I’m note entirely certain, but this column is most often left blank. Does anyone else have any input on this?

Columns eleven and twelve are again familiar – religion and mother tongue. Column thirteen asks about literacy and education, and column fourteen asks about occupations.

I’ll have my hands full with this census for awhile – it appears that they had one sheet per family – unlike other censuses I have worked with, where families were listed one after another on one sheet of paper until there was no more space. But I have patience. Hopefully this census, and then the 1935 and 1941 ones that I will view in Latvia, will be keys to unlocking some more mysterious parts of my family history!

Have you had any luck finding your ancestors in this census? Share your stories in comments!