Language can be one of the biggest obstacles to tracing Latvian genealogy. However, it is not an insurmountable one. Most records follow specific patterns, and once you know what to look for in the patterns, you can easily find what
Changes in Orthography
What happens when you apply the orthography of one language to a fairly unrelated language? A right mess, that’s what. As mentioned before, up until the 1890s most church books in Latvia were written in German. German is, as its
Languages in the Records
If in the course of your research you have come across a Latvian ancestor, and you do not speak Latvian, you may feel like you have hit a big stumbling block to continuing your research. Good news! The block may