While ruling powers – Germans, Swedes, Russians, Poles, etc. – changed over the centuries, one constant in the ruling class remained: Most local gentry in Latvian territory were Germans. As a result, many documents related to Latvian genealogical research prior
RÄ«ga Passport Database Index is Available!
Okay, so admittedly, I’m late with this post, since the database I’m going to talk about came online a few months ago, but with the other projects I’ve got going on, I hadn’t gotten around to this post yet. Better
Dates Before 1834
If you’ve spent any time in the Latvian church records on Raduraksti, you’ll have probably noticed that in most cases, the earliest records of births, marriages and deaths you’ll find is 1834 or 1835 (for ethnic Latvians, records for Germans
Connecting with Living Relatives
People always ask me how to find and connect with living relatives. It can be done, and there are a number of ways to approach it. Depending on the approach and what your priorities are in locating living relatives, you
Saving Time on Death Records
All genealogists know that “killing off” – that is, establishing precise death dates and places – your ancestors is important. It helps prevent them from being confused with other people, explains why they weren’t at later events/places, and so on.
What Are You Looking For?
This blog has been going for over three and a half years! Over the years, I’ve made a number of different posts, and I’ve decided to put this post together to highlight some key posts that are particularly useful for
Book Review: The Case for Latvia
I don’t review books on here often – okay, this is the first review – but I think it might be something I start. This book in particular I think is very valuable for understanding the tricky nuances of Latvian
Surname Saturday – Estates are Live on the Latvian Surname Project!
What do we have for today’s Surname Saturday? A new content category on the Latvian Surname Project! If you’ve stopped by the Latvian Surname Project recently, you may have happened across some of the work I’ve been doing adding surnames
Tracking World War One Refugees
The First World War was a time of chaos across Europe. And yet, there was order as well, at least in Latvian territory and amongst Latvians residing elsewhere. The documentation surrounding Latvian refugees of the First World War is extremely
Free Country – January 29, 1940
This is part of my series of interesting newspaper articles that I find in the old Latvian newspapers available through Periodika. Most of the articles I post are in some way related to migration, wars or other events that are