Using Saaga

If you have Latvian ancestors who didn’t stay in one place, and thus ended up moving from estate to estate every few years (or even several times a year), keeping track of them can become a bit of a challenge. It can become even more of a challenge if those ancestors are from northern Latvia, where if they moved just one more estate to the north, they ended up in what is now Estonia and thus the records on Raduraksti are of no use anymore. What do you do then?

Enter Saaga, the Estonian National Archives’ equivalent to Raduraksti. Saaga is important for Latvian researchers for a number of reasons, the most important being that up until the fall of the Russian Empire, northern Latvia and southern Estonia were one province – Livland. When creating the borders of the Baltic provinces, the German and Russian authorities didn’t much care about the indigenous linguistic boundaries, so thus Livland was the home of Latvians and Estonians. This also means that Latvian and Estonian families that lived near the modern-day border could often end up moving from one modern-day country to the other, since in that time period, they were one and the same.

Saaga contains many documents that Raduraksti does not – military recruitment information, parish records, court records, and so on. These items are available in the Latvian State Historical Archives, but they have not been digitized. Saaga also has a number of features that Raduraksti does not – namely, the ability to save the images directly (for Raduraksti, you would typically have to screenshot or go through a complicated process to save from the source) and the ability to search for names.

This last feature is typically of great interest to researchers, but managing search results can be a bit of a challenge, and this is where I find the difficulty of using Saaga comes in. While there is an English interface, with a tour (highly recommended for first-time users) and “tips and tricks” provided in good English, once you actually start looking into the different types of records, the headings are not available in English. The “church records” section has a sidebar that provides translations of headings, but that sidebar is only available on the main page, not when you get to the pages that actually have the words you’re looking to translate, so you might want to copy and paste that sidebar to a different document for easy consultation, or keep a tab of that main page open while searching so you can come back to it.

The search feature is also not available for all documents – when it comes to the church records, my experience is that they have only indexed the parish registers, not the birth/marriage/death records. However, the parish registers provide a starting point from which you can then find the other records more easily, since they will usually have full birthdates as well as places of birth, marriage, etc.

I can’t hope to be able to give you English translations of all of the Estonian on the site, but here are some basic words to know. Also remember that Estonian uses noun declension just like Latvian does, so if you see one of these words with a different suffix, don’t panic.

  • Estonian – eesti
  • Latvian – läti (may appear in border parishes)
  • German – saksa
  • Russian – vene
  • Lists – nimekirjad
  • Congregation – pihtkond
  • Parish register – Personaalraamat
  • Town – linn
  • Estate (manorial) – mõis
  • Parish/parish administration – vald/vallavalitsus
  • Surname – perekonnanimi
  • Family – perekond

Are you ready to dive into the records on Saaga? Do you have other questions? I can try to answer them, but you can also look to the sidebars within Saaga – these sidebars are full of useful information, both translations of headings and background context for the different records. Good luck in your searches!

Tombstone Tuesday – PÄ“ters and Liene Tiliks

In this series, I am providing pictures of tombstones from Latvian cemeteries, all with death dates prior to 1945. I do not have any further information on the people mentioned.

Photo taken by me, April 2012. Click to enlarge.

Names: Pēters Tiliks, born February 29, 1867, died May 3, 1934; Liene Tiliks (maiden name Žīgurs), born February 22, 1872, died August 25, 1938

Location: Meža kapi, Rīga

Tombstone Tuesday – Andrejs Vācietis, 1855-1930

In this series, I am providing pictures of tombstones from Latvian cemeteries, all with death dates prior to 1945. I do not have any further information on the people mentioned.

Photo taken by me, April 2012. Click to enlarge.

Name: Andrejs Vācietis, born October 18, 1855, died May 17, 1930

Inscription: “Mīļā piemiņā paturÄ“s Dailes Teatra personāls” (“Dearly remembered by the personnel of the Daile Theatre”)

Location: Meža kapi cemetery, Rīga

Tombstone Tuesday – KriÅ¡jānis Skricfreijs, 1820-1895

In this series, I am providing pictures of tombstones from Latvian cemeteries, all with death dates prior to 1945. I do not have any further information on the people mentioned.

Photo taken by me, April 2012. Click to enlarge.

Name: Krišjānis Skricfreijs (old orthography Cristjahn Skritzfreij), born January 15, 1820, died June 14, 1895

Inscription: “Esi uzticÄ«gs lÄ«dz nāvei, tad es tevÄ«m doÅ¡u to dzÄ«vÄ«bas kroni” (“Be faithful unto death, then I will give you that crown of life”)

Location: Dubulti cemetery, JÅ«rmala

Words on the tombstone are in old Latvian orthography, my transcription is in modern orthography.

Tombstone Tuesday – Jānis and Marta Dambis

In this series, I am providing pictures of tombstones from Latvian cemeteries, all with death dates prior to 1945. I do not have any further information on the people mentioned.

Photo taken by me, April 2012. Click to enlarge.

Top Inscription: “Eduards Dambis Ä¢imenes Kapi” (“Family Grave of Eduards Dambis”)

Names: Jānis Adolps, born April 27, 1908, died April 24, 1910; Marta Leontina, born July 27, 1909, died October 28, 1910.

Bottom Inscription: “Nāc piekusuÅ¡ais ceļinieks, Å¡e atpÅ«sties varÄ“si, Å¡eit mieru panāksi” (Come weary traveller, here you can rest, here you will find peace”)

Location: Meža kapi cemetery, Rīga

I would guess that the Eduards Dambis mentioned in the heading of the gravestone is probably the father (or maybe grandfather) of these children.

Tombstone Tuesday – KriÅ¡s Kuntzendorfs, 1835-1908

In this series, I am providing pictures of tombstones from Latvian cemeteries, all with death dates prior to 1945. I do not have any further information on the people mentioned.

Photo taken by me, September 2012. Click to enlarge.

Name: Krišs Kuntzendorfs, born March 13, 1835, died September 16, 1908

Inscription: “Nu dusiet Dieva lauciņā, Kā jaukā klusā dārziņā, KamÄ“r jÅ«s Kristus modinās, Un debesÄ«s pagodinās.” (Now sleep in God’s pasture, as in a pleasant quiet garden, until Christ wakes you, and honours you in heaven.”)

Location: Mārtiņi cemetery, Rīga

Words on the tombstone are in old Latvian orthography, my transcription is in modern orthography.

Happy 94th Birthday Latvia!

On November 18th, 1918, the Republic of Latvia was officially proclaimed by the Latvian Provisional Government in the space that is now the National Theatre in RÄ«ga.

There was still a fight to retain the independence of this new republic, and it is important that we do not forget that. I only learned about the Latvian War of Independence that came afterwards when I started researching and learning about Latvian history on my own – the way my diaspora Latvian school had always taught it, after November 18, 1918, everything was sunshine and roses. We knew that there was a war of independence, but they weren’t specific about when it took place, so that led me to think it was before November 18, 1918, when it was in fact afterwards.

As my post last week on November 11, Lāčplēsis Day, described, the Latvian War of Independence took place through 1919 and part of 1920. Independence was recognized internationally in 1921, with Latvia joining the League of Nations on September 22, 1921.

Here is the text of the Latvian national anthem, written by Kārlis Baumanis in 1873. It was selected as the anthem on June 7, 1920, by the Constitutional Assembly.

Dievs, svētī Latviju,

MÅ«s’ dārgo tÄ“viju,

Svētī jel Latviju,

Ak, svētī jel to!

Kur latvju meitas zied,

Kur latvju dēli dzied,

Laid mums tur laimē diet,

MÅ«s’ Latvijā!

Where Could They Be From?

What do you do if you have little to go on when it comes to researching your Latvian ancestors? What if they emigrated in the late 1800s or early 1900s, and the only information that passenger lists or naturalization records provide is that they came from “Latvia” or “Russia”? What do you do then?

First, do not give up hope. You do have options to explore. It might take a bit longer, but the possibilities are out there, and you may be able to make that link back to Latvia that you have been hoping for.

The most important tool that you can use to trace your elusive ancestor is the genealogical FAN club – Friends, Associates, Neighbours. If you are not finding anything on your ancestor, take a look at the people he or she traveled with to get to the new country. Look at the neighbours on a census record. Look at work colleagues, farm employees, anyone else in their profession in the area. Once you’ve identified others who may have been Latvian, try and trace their families – you could get lucky with one of them naming a previous place of residence or birth in Latvia, and this could be your ancestor’s old home as well.

If you’ve struck out in terms of direct associates in the area, try looking up Latvian associations from that time period and general area – Latvian clubs sprung up in most areas where Latvians lived, and some of their documentation survives. These documents could be difficult to find, depending on who holds them now, but many are out there somewhere. Quite a number are held by the Latvian National Archives. If your ancestor emigrated from Latvia post-1905, chances are good that they were involved in revolutionary activity of some sort, in which case you may also want to investigate the records for any socialist, social-democratic or Communist clubs in your ancestor’s new home, since he may have joined one of those on arrival (or helped form a Latvian one).

A number of these organizations also put out newspapers. Like association archival documents, they might be difficult to find, but they are out there. Among them are such papers as “Strādnieks” (American Latvian social-democratic newspaper), “BrÄ«vÄ«ba” (Latvian anarchist newspaper published in London and New York), “Melnais Karogs” (Latvian anarchist newspaper published in Paris), etc. Some are available from the Latvian National Library, others are available at depositories in the United States and elsewhere around the world. Can be worth a look to see if your ancestor was mentioned in them.

Still no luck? Take a look at your ancestor’s name, and the names of their family members. If they did not change their name when they moved to their new country, that name could provide some clues. Not all names will provide clues, but some will, directing you to a particular religion or region of Latvia. For example, women’s names starting with “An”, such as “AnlÄ«ze”, “AntrÄ«ne” and “AnkatrÄ«ne” are most common in Kurland province (this does not, however, apply to “Anna”, which is common all over Latvia). Germanic first names are more likely to appear for people who were Lutheran, while Slavic first names could point towards a Catholic or Orthodox background. If your ancestor’s surname is sufficiently uncommon, try looking for it in farm names, trying first on BalticMaps, by clicking “Search for address or place” and then entering the first part of the name (leave off the ending for better results due to grammatical cases). If you find it, try looking at the parish records for that area to see if you can find your ancestor.

If you know that your ancestor was involved with the 1905 Revolution, you can try looking for them in one of the many books dedicated to this topic, such as “Latvijas revolucionāro cÄ«nÄ«tāju piemiņas grāmata” (“Book of Remembrance for Latvia’s Revolutionary Fighters”), which is available also in libraries outside of Latvia, such as at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA), the New York Public Library (USA) and the British Library (UK). You can also consult the records I mentioned in my last post regarding police records, but these have no indexes, so you would be better off starting with the books, which do.

If none of these resources have yielded any fruit, you can start conducting a parish-by-parish search for your ancestors in Latvia, but that would be a last-ditch resort. At least you can do it from the comfort of your own home now, with Raduraksti. If you do resort to this option, I would recommend starting with the parishes in Kurland, since most Latvian emigrants of the late 19th and early 20th century were from that province. But before you start on this parish by parish search, drop me a line, and see if I have any other suggestions for you!

Need more information on tracking down your pre-WW1 Latvian emigrant ancestor? Want some advice on where to look for certain organizational records? I can try and help!

Ž is for Žandarmērija

So now we have come to the end of the Family History Through the Alphabet challenge! I’m happy that I’ve been able to complete the whole challenge. What next, I wonder?

So, Ž is for ŽandarmÄ“rija… “žandarmÄ“rija” is the Latvian word for “gendarmerie”. This is typically a branch of military that also provides policing functions. This is precisely what the Special Corps of Gendarmes did in the late 19th and early 20th centuries of the Russian Empire. For the purposes of this blog, the specific divisions we’re interested in are the ones for the Kurland and Livland governorates.

If your ancestor was involved in any sort of revolutionary activity, there is a good chance that they are mentioned somewhere in the records of the Kurland or Livland gendarmeries. The Latvian State Historical Archives has the records for both organizations, located in fonds 4569 and 4568, respectively. Also useful in this category, though not strictly speaking “gendarmerie” records, is fonds 4621, which contains the records for the RÄ«ga security service (including Okhrana agents, the Okhrana being the Czarist secret police). However, like most Latvian records, they are not indexed in any way, and the abstracts (which are in Russian) do not list all of the people mentioned in the documents.

What kind of documents can be found? Arrest records, surveillance notes, records of who was sent where (if a convicted person was sentenced to time in Siberia), details about people under surveillance (including where they were originally from, quite useful if you’ve got an ancestor in RÄ«ga whose origins you are unsure of), copies of revolutionary pamphlets and publications, even codes and ciphers used by revolutionary organizations. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

In short, these documents have the potential to be a gold mine of information for genealogical researchers, especially for information about RÄ«ga dwellers in the late 19th and early 20th century. In this explosive time period, it would be difficult to find a working-class Latvian in RÄ«ga who hadn’t participated in the revolutionary movement in any way. Tens of thousands of people participated in some of the larger strikes and demonstrations, with numbers sometimes reaching over 100,000. Of course, it is unlikely that all of these people are mentioned in the documents, but anyone who participated in clandestine meetings, or was a due-paying member of a revolutionary organization is likely to be mentioned somewhere.

As I mentioned above, these documents are not indexed, which can be a barrier. Another potential barrier is the fact that most of the records are in Russian. But if you have the time and language skills (or desire to learn) to make your way through the abstracts and then through various documents, there could be great information in store for you.

Have you made use of any police records? Any interesting stories about revolutionary ancestors to share?

Tombstone Tuesday – PÄ“teris and LÄ«ze Korpis

In this series, I am providing pictures of tombstones from Latvian cemeteries, all with death dates prior to 1945. I do not have any further information on the people mentioned.

Photo taken by me, September 2012. Click to enlarge.

Top Inscription: “Å e dus Dieva mierā” (“Sleeping here in God’s peace”)

PÄ“teris Korpis, born March 13, 1863, died April 5, 1909; LÄ«ze Korpe, maiden name Baldone, born September 2, 1861, died May 27, 1911.

Location: Mārtiņi cemetery, Rīga

Words on the tombstone are in old Latvian orthography, my transcription is in modern orthography.