Click for full image. Image courtesy of a cousin from my Lūkins family line.
Fishing manager JĒKABS ŠĪRS, 61 1/2 years old, born in Aloja, divorced.
Died on October 4, 1923, at 10 o’clock in the evening in Rīnuži.
Buried October 14, 1923 at the Baltās Baznīcas (White Church) cemetery.
Daugavgrīva church book, 1923 deaths, #53.
Jēkabs Šīrs was my great-great-grandfather. He was born in Aloja in northern Latvia to parents Jānis and Kristīne on May 30, 1862 (O.S.). When he came to live in the Rīga area is unclear, but his daughter Lilija was born at Kalnciems in 1899. Sometime prior to this, he married Kristīne Kukure, who is also allegedly from northern Latvia, but I have yet to find her birth record anywhere. They divorced in June of 1923.
At the time of Jēkabs’ death, he was living at Rīnuži, which was a place in what is now the Vecmilgrāvis part of Rīga. Whether Rīnuži was a hamlet with a number of families or a property owned by the Šīrs and Lūkins families, I’m not exactly certain yet, but today in that area is a Rīnuži street, which intersects with Baltāsbaznīcas street (White Church Street), where the Šīrs and Lūkins families lived. The “White Church” in question is the Daugavgrīva Lutheran Church, in whose cemetery Jēkabs was interred.
My grandfather Aleksandrs Francis was born on September 24th, 1920. The first twenty years of his life were, by all accounts, relatively normal for a middle-class Latvian youth growing up in the 20s and 30s. He attended an agricultural high school, followed by a degree in agronomy from the Jelgava Academy of Agriculture.
Then in 1940, everything changed. World War 2 had broken out, and the Soviet forces invaded Latvia when Aleks was nineteen. His father, Arvīds, an intelligence agent, was arrested by the Soviets, and subsequently executed. By the end of the war, Aleks had ended up in Denmark. He was twenty-four, and would never see his mother or sister again.
Aleks became a leader in the Latvian Displaced Persons community in Denmark, and was the Latvian representative of the Gurrehus manor DP camp. This poem was presented to him on his 25th birthday, on September 24th, 1945. Below is my literal translation – I’m sure it is littered with inside jokes and is probably partially in jest, these were probably twentysomething men writing this, after all – so it is likely that some aspects of it are lost in translation.
A humble offering
to Latvian leader and board member Aleksandrs Francis on his birthday.
Latvian camp in Denmark at “Gurrehus” castle, 1945.
(You have) Gone into the field of our people,
Gathered people all around you,
Keep a pleasant smile on your face -
Don’t slide back down the mountain!
There are weeds for you to weed in the fields,
Blame the envious and glorify friends!
Don’t worry yourself with trivial things -
(Rare is the time with love’s joys)
Don’t pay attention to Liza or Zete -
Give your friends a cigarette!
The envious will choke on porridge,
Friends will call you smart:
They’ll give you commendations,
Medals with rhyming poems.
May you rise in honour and glory,
Abroad and in your country!
While at first glance, a document like this might not appear to have genealogical value besides personal interest, looking more closely does reveal important elements – namely, dates and places. I knew about the Gurrehus DP camp from my grandmother and great-aunt (and I believe it is where my grandmother and grandfather met), and have visited the site personally, but I had thought that it was one of the later places that they stayed during those four years in Denmark. This shows that Aleks at least was already at Gurrehus in 1945, not long after the end of the war. This can help to reconstruct his post-war movements and places of residence. Once I obtain ITS documents for him, then I will be able to get a fuller picture of his life after leaving Latvia and before arriving in Canada.
This post is the first in a series that I’ll be making about events in my ancestors’ lives, on the days that the events took place.
My reasons for this series are twofold – first of all, it helps me organize my own family documents and files, which is something that has been severely lacking, especially in this past year when I’ve been so wrapped up in other activities that I’ve barely had time to touch my own family research. Secondly, it provides concrete examples to you, my readers, of the different kinds of documents that you may be able to consult in your own Latvian research.
Birth: 10th of September 1895, 10pm
Baptism: 6th (?) of October 1895
No. 289 – Anna Natalie, daughter of worker Fritz Leepa and his wife Mihle born Busch. Both Lutheran. Godparents: Miss Anna Busch, Mrs Kristine Balod, smith Alexander Busch. Baptized at St Paul’s Church, Pastor C. Walter.
This may be the birth record of my great-grandmother Anna Liepa. I’ll get back to the “may be” in a bit, first a bit on her.
Anna Liepa was born in Rīga on September 22, 1895, according to the Gregorian calendar. At the time of her birth in the Russian Empire, her birthday was September 10. Her tombstone cites her date of birth as September 23, but every document of hers that I have (internal passport, marriage record, numerous house book entries, etc.) all state September 22 (and in the early years of independent Latvia, both the Gregorian and Julian dates are cited together). She was a bookkeeper, and married Pēteris Eduards Celmiņš in Rīga on September 17, 1919.
Now back to the “may be” – Anna was born in Rīga, which was and is the biggest city in Latvia. This means there are lots of records to check, and both her first and last names are fairly common. I haven’t consulted all of the Rīga records yet, but this one certainly is the best candidate.
My reasoning, in favour of this being her birth record:
- Her precise birth date is mentioned here – September 10, 1895, according to the Julian calendar.
- Numerous other documents, such as her internal passport and her marriage record, mention that her father’s name is Fricis, which this record agrees with.
- This record is an extract from the Sv. Pāvila (St Paul’s) Lutheran Church. This church is the closest one to where Anna and her husband and children were known to live. While this doesn’t prove that she was born in that same area of town, her husband was from the country, and thus it was likely for him to join her family rather than the other way around. This happens numerous times throughout my family history, so could have happened here as well.
Points against this being her birth record:
- No other documents mention a middle name of “Natalie” or “Natālija” (a more Latvianized form of the name). Neither her passport nor her marriage record nor any house book records mention a middle name.
- There are numerous “Fricis Liepas” in Rīga around this time. The 1903 Rīga address book mentions two, the 1912 address book mentions three. Any of them could have had daughters named Anna around the same time.
So the search continues. Is this the right record? I won’t know until I check the rest of the churches. I could also obtain her death record and hope that it has her mother’s first name and maiden name on it. Until then, Anna remains one of my problem ancestors.
Can anyone help identify the building in this photograph? I’m pretty sure it is in Denmark, since it is a photo of my grandmother from her collection of Displaced Persons camp photographs, c. 1945-1949. However, I haven’t been able to turn up any results. Also possible that it could be in northern Germany around Hamburg or Bremen. I think I have seen this building personally, but I can’t recall where it was or what it is called. Thanks for any help!
So you want to use Raduraksti, but you’re intimidated, because you don’t know German or Russian. That’s okay! With a bit of work, you can find everything you need to know from these records, without needing to be fluent, or even proficient, in the languages. It is just a question of being able to extract the relevant information. Prior to 1891, most records will be in German, after 1891, usually in Russian, often (but not always) with Latin transliterations of names provided.
This is an image of a typical 19th century Lutheran baptism record (which serves as a birth record prior to civil registration). Records for other religions are different, and I will probably cover them later. This is the format used most often across the Latvian provinces, though there was a different format used in Kurzeme (the western province) occasionally, and I will look at that one later as well.
My great-grandfather’s birth record, Trikāta Lutheran church, 1888.
The first two columns are pretty simple – the date of birth and the date of baptism. In this case, the date of baptism says “eodem” which means “the same” – see higher up in the column. A number of children may have been baptized on the same day, and the scribe only wanted to write the date out once.
The third column has all the important bits in it, so this is where you really need to start paying attention.
The first item will be the record number – this will be what you want to cite when you are referencing your source in your genealogical records, in addition to the year of the record. While page numbers can be useful, they can also vary – I’ve seen numerous records where there are several page numbers in the corner of the scanned sheet, as well as the page navigation numbers within Raduraksti. Any of these can be changed again, so while you should record them for ease of retrieval, the “official” reference number should be the one that doesn’t change – that of the record.
Next is the city/town name, or, more commonly for rural parishes, the name of the manorial estate and the name of the farm. In this case, it is “Wiezemhof Stampwehwer” – in Latvian, Vijciems estate, Stampvēveri farm. A good (though not comprehensive) list of German names and their Latvian equivalents is available here.
Then we finally have the name of the individual who was baptized – in this case, “Peter Eduard Zelmiņ” – or, in modern Latvian, “Pēteris Eduards Celmiņš”.
The next section will show the names of parents, with later records usually also including the mother’s maiden name (indicated by “geb.” in German or ур. in Russian) – here, “Peter Zelmiņ” (Pēteris Celmiņš) and “Marri geb. Radsin” (Marija née Radziņa). Before the father’s name, a record will typically list the father’s occupation as well – in this case “Wirt”, meaning landlord/land manager (either the owner of the farm, or the person in charge if the farm was still owned by the manorial estate owner). In Russian, it would be хозяин (for men), хозяйка (for women). Other commonly listed occupations (German/Russian) are Knecht/батрак (farmhand), Arbeiter/работник (worker), Soldat/солдат (soldier) and Tischler/столяр (carpenter).
The little notation after the parent’s names indicates their religion. In a Lutheran church record, typically this will say “both Lutheran”, but sometimes one of the other parents (usually the mother, though not always) will be of a different religion (As noted in this post, I found a random British man living in southern Latvia, whose children were baptized in the Lutheran church, while he himself was Anglican).
The following names are those of the witnesses/godparents – this section might only list the names of the people, might list their occupation or their non-married state (“Junggeselle” for “bachelor” and “Mädchen” or “Magd” for “maiden”). Sometimes they also mention where that person lives – this is how I found one of my great-great-grandfathers, by consulting the church records local to a woman with the same surname that had been listed as one of his daughters’ godparents.
… and with that, you’ve retrieved the key data! There are, of course, other notations, but these are the key features that you need to find to further your research.
What have you managed to find? What key facts about your ancestors have you learned through Raduraksti recently? Share your stories below!
Rīga is the capital city of Latvia and the largest city in the Baltics. Since Latvian records are largely unindexed, this means that locating an ancestor in Rīga is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
If your ancestors were ethnic Latvians, however, you might find yourself lucky – most ethnic Latvians in the capital arrived towards the end of the nineteenth century. In 1897, Rīga was 45% Latvian, in 1867, only 23%. Therefore, if your ancestors are ethnic Latvians, there is a good chance that you might only need to deal with Rīga records for a generation or two.
Thus the title of this post – how can you most efficiently look through that haystack of records to locate your ancestors and link them to a parish outside of Rīga, and thus a place that can be searched much more easily?
1. Passports. The Latvian State Historical Archives has a collection of internal passports for Rīga residents in the inter-war period. The good news is that they are indexed on a computer for ease of searching. Bad news is that they are not online, and only available by searching the database onsite. These passports note both place of residence and place of birth. Also important is “place of registration”, which can often be the place of birth – even if they haven’t lived there in years. One of my great-grandfathers was still registered as a citizen of Vijciems parish, even though at the time of issuance of the passport he had been living in Rīga for at least a decade.
2. 1940 Telephone Directory. Available online at GenealogyIndexer (has all of Latvia, scroll down to find Rīga). Now, not everyone had a telephone, but it is a start. This can be used to locate an address, and then you can look for parish records for that area. Of course, people move, and sometimes frequently, but a starting point is better than nothing.
3. 1897 All-Russia Census. Available on Raduraksti. The records for Rīga are fairly complete, and organized by street name. The census mentions place of birth and religion, both important tools to locate the proper religious BMD documents.
4. Religious records. Available on Raduraksti. There are many religious records available for Rīga, so if you’ve narrowed down where your ancestors lived, start searching in nearby parishes, and then expand your search from there. Rīga records sometimes contain rudimentary indexes (still handwritten), available at the beginning or end of the book. Check both to see if one is available. If someone is a recent migrant to Rīga, any information pertaining to them with regards to “home parish” will frequently reference their non-Rīga parish (see above with regards to place of registration). This is most common with marriage and death records, so if you know when an ancestor died in Rīga, find their death record first to see if they were born in Rīga as well.
5. School records. If your ancestor went to school in Rīga, there may be extant records for the school that could provide information on where the student was from. Sometimes school archive files (available at the Latvian State Historical Archives) will contain birth certificates of students, previous school transcripts, and so on.
6. Revision lists. These are available on Raduraksti. If you find your ancestors were in Rīga prior to the early 1860s, you will need to head to the revision lists. Now, the ones for Rīga are more complicated than for rural parishes – they are arranged by social class and, in some cases, religion (the religious groups most likely to have separate lists are Jews and Old Believers). Alphabetical indexes appear to exist for some of the lists, but not all of them. Raduraksti has many different lists relating to Rīga, so you may have to sort through them for awhile to find who you’re looking for. It appears that for the most part, the latest date on these documents is 1863.
Another thing to remember is that your ancestor might not have been from Rīga at all – just like emigrants from other countries, people might name the largest city to their home as their place of birth, when they were actually from the countryside. So unless you have a document (preferably of Latvian origin, since they would be most likely to be correct on Latvian places of residence and birth) that specifically links your ancestors to Rīga, do not assume that is where they are from, just because it is a large population centre. This holds especially true for ethnic Latvians – while the share of ethnic Latvians in Rīga did increase in the late 1800s and eventually become a majority in the interwar period, ethnic Latvians were still a predominantly rural population. If your ancestors were not ethnic Latvians, however, their chances of being Rīga-born for centuries are much higher.
Have you searched for your ancestors in Rīga? Do you have any other tips to share for Rīga searches? Add them below!
My apologies – this post should have been up yesterday, but my Internet provider had an outage, so thus this post comes to you today.
June 14, 1941 is a day that remains emblazoned on the Latvian psyche – this is the day when thousands of our countrymen and women were deported to Siberia, along with thousands of others from the other Baltic countries of Estonia and Lithuania, as well as thousands also from Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova.
The train voyages to Siberia were long, and some died enroute. Many of those deported died in exile and were never able to return to their homelands. Most of those that did return suffered from numerous health ailments that were acquired as a result of the time spent in harsh conditions.
These stories need to be told. If you, reading this, experienced or witnessed these deportations, or other aspects of the war, do not let your stories pass out of memory. Write them down or otherwise record them, share them with your children and grandchildren. You can also share your stories with me and I will publish them here. If your parents or grandparents told you the stories of these times, record and share them as well.
I have a number of books that have been written thus far, that provide stories and experiences of the deporations, so I will provide some excerpts here. These stories serve as a witness to a historical event that too many have forgotten. Let us never forget.
“At 3.20am on June 14, 1941, m parents and I were arrested without a court order or the public prosecutor’s authorisation. We were taken out on the street, loaded into a truck, driven to the Torņakalns station in Rīga and put on a long train of cattle wagons, one of many. At about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, the doors of the wagon opened and my father was called away. He said goodbye to us quickly and pressed into my mother’s hand his gold pocket watch and silver cigarette case, on which, in gold letters, his friends had written their initials and the words ‘For you, it may come in handy!’ In the winter of 1943, this proved to be true. 14 June 1941 was the last time I saw Father as he got off the cattle wagon.”
-from “I Was Twenty-One” by Aleksandrs Birznieks, in We Sang Through Tears (NB: A memorial stone now stands at Torņakalns train station in Rīga to commemorate all of those who were deported)
“I remember one day, on my way back from pulling logs, I tripped and fell. As I struggled to get up, I saw that I had tripped over a foot, the owner of which was lying there, covered in snow. The famine was appalling. I was still able to divide my little bit of bread into three portions and eat three times, but some people would eat it in one go. Occasionally some tiny fish were issued. In the -40°C to -50°C Arctic cold, we could only drag out one or two logs a day, later on we couldn’t even manage that, but then we didn’t get any bread, either. Day and night, we were continually tormented by the thought of food.”
-from “The Dark Pages of My Life” by Lidija Vilnis, in We Sang Through Tears
“My mother had hidden our gold items in cloth bundles, and her most expensive one was a bracelet with gems, but she didn’t know which bundle contained it. That she brought back, even though at times it was difficult to find food. Without a doubt, someone would have taken it in exchange for half a bucket of potatoes, but that would be the maximum. Gold does not always have the worth that we think it does.”
-Zigurds Bētiņš, in Sibīrijas Bērni (translated by me)
“My father ended up in the Vjatlag camp in Kirov oblast, and already in the first year working in the forest, he was not in good health… as much as we can understand from books, the camp had hard work, hard conditions, without groceries. He died there on December 3, 1941. We waited for a long time after the war, always hoping, that no matter how he was – old, stiff, crippled, just that he would be, that he and our mother would be home! That our mother had died, we knew… but our father we waited for long and hard. Officially we heard about his death during the Atmodas period. Before that, there had already been all sorts of news, that he had died. This we learned from those that had returned.”
-Harijs Ešenvalds, in Sibīrijas Bērni (translated by me)
I’ve mentioned the International Tracing Service (ITS) numerous times, as a key resource to finding out information about WW2-era Latvian emigrants who spent the post-war years in Displaced Persons (DP) camps in Western Europe. Despite their important activities, I rarely see them get a mention anywhere.
Until now! This news article, which I first saw in a local newspaper last week, highlights the important work they do – and even has a Latvian connection! [Update November 2011: Original link is dead, but you can read the same story here.]
“Peter Jaunzemis went by the name George for more than six decades, but always wondered whether the Latvian refugee who brought him to New Zealand and raised him there was really his mother…. Jaunzemis recently discovered his true identity through the help of the International Tracing Service, ITS, in the central German town of Bad Arolsen, some 66 years since he was spirited away from a displaced persons camp in Belgium. He visited the archive Thursday to view his original file.
For more than a decade, Jaunzemis sought to trace his Latvian family roots, searching first through archives in New Zealand, where he grew up and served 27 years in the air force, then in Latvia, where he moved in 2000 after marrying his wife. He found nothing, not even a birth certificate.”
Sometimes documents disappear – I have yet to be able to find my maternal grandmother’s birth certificate, even though I have for certain when and where she was born and baptized, since her older sister was there and able to verify to me the time and place of birth – but finding absolutely nothing regarding one’s existence? This can be indicative of something that hadn’t been considered before – that the name you’re looking for isn’t actually the right one. This was the case here – and finding the right one brought a whole host of previously unknown information, including living relatives – a tangible link to a past previously unknown.
“Margret Schlenke, who heads the ITS department for missing persons, immediately found a file for Jaunzemis. But it also held another name, Peter van de Velde — a boy with the same birthdate as Jaunzemis who had been removed from his mother at a DP camp in Belgium in June 1945.
The file, stuffed with more than 150 tattered, yellowing pages, contained old photos and letters from Jaunzemis’ natural mother, Gertrud van de Velde, who for years sought for her son. She died in Brussels in 2009, months before he first wrote to the ITS.
Nevertheless Jaunzemis, who now goes by Peter, said he is relieved to finally know who he is and that he has family, a nephew and a cousin in the eastern German city of Magdeburg, where he was born.
‘I am at peace with myself now,’ he said. ‘Before I felt that I was something that had dropped out of the sky.’”
Finding connections to the world around you, about your and your family’s place in history and how life moved from point A to point B and onwards, is, in my opinion, what genealogy and seeking your family history is all about. Adding names to your family database has little meaning if you don’t know the stories behind those names, and how they came to be there.
There may always be unanswered questions – but some questions will have answers, if you know where to look. And everyone with WW2-era Latvian emigrant ancestors should look at the ITS. Even if you already know when and from where your family came, there is always the potential to find out new information about their lives and families, and what brought them to this place in their lives.
Dates and places are handy reference points for charting an ancestor’s life – but in the end, that’s all they are. Points of reference along a line of one person’s experience, but the stories to be found in between – what brought them to these pivotal places and dates? What kind of feelings could they have had about these life moments? Did they see them coming, or were they surprises? How did they react when their world was turned upside down and everything they knew vanished? How did they make the choice to trek across a continent in the middle of a war, hoping that peace would be on the other side? What did they give up and leave behind to do so?
We may not be able to get direct answers to these questions. But by conducting fuller research into our ancestors’ lives, going beyond the basic statistics, we can begin to grasp their motivations, hopes and dreams, and begin to understand the choices that they made.
Sorry for the long delay, school has been absolutely out of hand! But the summer arrives a week from now, so hopefully there will be more time to write here. I believe I’ve caught up on my email correspondence recently as well, so if you haven’t received a response from me, please resend your email, just in case technology made emails vanish somewhere along the way.
Onto the names! These follow earlier posts of Government Approved, Part 1 and Government Approved, Part 2. Part 4 still to come!
This week’s category: Names from Nature – animals, plants and anything “from the earth”. I’d consider this the most common category of Latvian surnames. Though if you don’t see your exact name here, don’t panic – the authorities did not recommend diminutive forms, but most often people disregarded that and went with them anyway. So if your surname looks like a name on this list, but ends in -iņš or -ītis instead, it will have that same origin. As before, modern renditions in brackets. If I am not familiar with a name, I’ve made my best guess as to how it would be rendered in modern spelling.
The book divides these names into separate categories, based on animal/plant category, so I will do the same.
| Ahpsis (Āpsis) |
Ahsis (Āzis) |
Auns (Auns) |
Bebris (Bebris) |
| Ehrkschķis (Ērkšķis) |
Esis (Ezis) |
Kuils (Kuilis) |
Kurmis (Kurmis) |
| Lahzis (Lācis) |
Luhsis (Lūsis) |
Pelle (Pele) |
Rohnis (Ronis) |
| Saķķis (Zaķis) |
Sirgs (Zirgs) |
Stirnis (Stirna) |
Wahweris (Vāveris) |
| Wehrsis (Vērsis) |
Zauns (Cauns) |
Zirksnis (Cirksnis) |
|
| Appohgs (Apogs) |
Ballodis (Balodis) |
Dadsitis (Dadzītis) |
Dsehrwis (Dzērvis) |
| Dsilnis (Dzilna) |
Duķķeris (Dūkuris) |
Ehrglis (Ērglis) |
Gahrnis (Gārnis) |
| Gaigalis (Gaigala) |
Gailis (Gailis) |
Irbe (Irbe) |
Kauķis (Kauķis) |
| Kimmuls (Kimulis) |
Kraukls (Krauklis) |
Lehlis (Lēlis) |
Meddenis (Mednis) |
| Paipale (Paipala) |
Ruhbens (Rubens) |
Sihls (Sīlis) |
Sohss (Zoss) |
| Stahrks (Stārķis) |
Stehrsts (Stērste) |
Strasds (Strazds) |
Swahpulis (Zvapulis) |
| Swirbulis (Zvirbulis) |
Tetteris (Teteris) |
Tihteris (Tītars) |
Uhpis (Ūpis) |
| Wannags (Vanags) |
Zahlis (Cālis) |
Zihrulis (Cīrulis) |
|
| Assers (Asaris) |
Grundulis (Grundulis) |
Kihsis (Ķīsis) |
Lihdegs (Līdaka) |
| Plaudis (Plaudis) |
Renģis (Renģis) |
Ruhdulis (Rudulis) |
Sams (Sams) |
| Sandarts (Zandarts) |
Sebris (Sebris) |
Silķis (Silķe) |
Skaunats (Skaunats) |
| Steepats (Stiepats) |
Suttis (Zutis) |
Taims (Taimiņš) |
Wimbis (Vimba) |
| Bitte (Bite) |
Dsirneklis (Zirneklis) |
Gleemesis (Gliemezis) |
Sissenis (Sisenis) |
| Spihguls (Spīgulis) |
Tauriņsch (Tauriņš) |
Wehsis (Vēzis) |
Zirzens (Circenis) |
| Ahbols (Ābols) |
Alksnis (Alksnis) |
Apsis (Apse) |
Behrse (Bērzis) |
| Eewe (Ieva) |
Egle (Egle) |
Ehrkschķis (Ērkšķis) |
Gohba (Goba) |
| Kahrklis (Kārklis) |
Klawa (Kļava) |
Leepa (Liepa) |
Ohsis (Osis) |
| Ohsols (Ozols) |
Pihladsis (Pīlādzis) |
Preede (Priede) |
Puhpuls (Pūpols) |
| Reekstis (Rieksts) |
Lusters (Lusters) |
Wihtols (Vītols) |
Zehrmauksis (Cērmauksis) |
| Appins (Apinis) |
Aschķis (Ašķis) |
Baldriņsch (Baldriņš) |
Dadsis (Dadzis) |
| Grihslis (Grīslis) |
Kahlis (Kālis) |
Kahposts (Kāposts) |
Ķiploks (Ķiploks) |
| Linnis (Līnis) |
Lohkis (Loks) |
Lupstagis (Lupstagis) |
Maggons (Magone) |
| Meirahns (Meirāns) |
Nahtris (Nātre) |
Papardis (Paparde) |
Rahziņsch (Rāciņš) |
| Rohsis (Roze) |
Rutks (Rutks) |
Sinnaps (Sinepes) |
Sirnis (Zirnis) |
| Steebrs (Stiebrs) |
Suhnis (Sūnis) |
Swammis (Zvamis) |
Waiwariņsch (Vaivariņš) |
| Akmins (Akmens) |
Alluhns (Alūns) |
Alwa (Alva) |
Dselsis (Dzelzis) |
| Kalķis (Kalķis) |
Klints (Klints) |
Mahls (Māls) |
Missiņsch (Misiņš) |
| Sahls (Sāls) |
Sehrs (Sērs) |
Selts (Zelts) |
Smilkts (Smilkts) |
| Sudrabs (Sudrabs) |
Sweķis (Sveķis) |
Swins (Svins) |
Swirgsdis (Zvirgzdis) |
| Tehrauds (Tērauds) |
Warsch (Varš) |
|
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Following along from my post two weeks ago, I am currently posting surnames that were approved and suggested by the government of Livland in the 1820s for peasants if they needed some ideas and inspiration.
This week’s category: Personal Attributes and Characteristics, that either one has, aspires to, or wants their descendants to aspire to. These names are not very common, but I have seen some in old records. As before, modern renditions in brackets. If I am not familiar with a name, I’ve made my best guess as to how it would be rendered in modern spelling.
| Agrs (Agrs) |
Ahtrs (Ātrs) |
Baggats (Bagāts) |
Bahrsdains (Bārzdains) |
| Balts (Balts) |
Bees (Bīss) |
Besbehdis (Bezbēdis) |
Behrnigs (Bērnīgs) |
| Behrnischks (Bērnišķs) |
Brangs (Brangs) |
Brohsch (Brašs) |
Brohdigs (Brodīgs) |
| Dahrgs (Dārgs) |
Dailsch (Daiļš) |
Dedsigs (Dedzīgs) |
Derigs (Derīgs) |
| Disch (Dižs) |
Drohsch (Drošs) |
Dseltans (Dzeltens) |
Dsihws (Dzīvs) |
| Dsilsch (Dziļš) |
Gaddigs (Gadīgs) |
Gahdigs (Gādīgs) |
Gahrds (Gards) |
| Gaisch (Gaišs) |
Garsch (Garš) |
Gattaws (Gatavs) |
Gaudens (Gaudens) |
| Gaumigs (Gaumīgs) |
Gausigs (Gausīgs) |
Geldigs (Geldīgs) |
Glaums (Glauns) |
| Glihts (Glīts) |
Gluds (Gluds) |
Gohdigs (Godīgs) |
Greesigs (Griezīgs) |
| Gresns (Grezns) |
Gudrs (Gudrs) |
Jautrs (Jautrs) |
Ihss (Īss) |
| Ihstens (Īstens) |
Kahrs (Kārs) |
Kahrtigs (Kārtīgs) |
Karsts (Karsts) |
| Kaunigs (Kaunīgs) |
Klahjigs (Klājīgs) |
Klausigs (Klausīgs) |
Kluss (Kluss) |
| Knasch (Knašs) |
Kohpigs (Kopīgs) |
Kohsch (Košs) |
Krahschns (Krašņs) |
| Kreetns (Krietns) |
Kupls (Kupls) |
Lahgs (Lāgs) |
Laimigs (Laimīgs) |
| Laipnigs (Laipnīgs) |
Leels (Liels) |
Leesmains (Liesmains) |
Leetigs (Lietīgs) |
| Lehns (Lēns) |
Lihdsens (Līdzens) |
Lihdsigs (Līdzīgs) |
Lihgsms (Līgsms) |
| Lipnigs (Lipnīgs) |
Lohkains (Lokains) |
Lohzigs (Locīgs) |
Lustigs (Lustīgs) |
| Mahzigs (Mācīgs) |
Mannigs (Mānīgs) |
Mantigs (Mantīgs) |
Masais (Mazais) |
| Masisks (Mazisks) |
Meddigs (Medīgs) |
Meerigs (Mierīgs) |
Melns (Melns) |
| Melnazzis (Melnacis) |
Mihksts (Mīksts) |
Mihls (Mīļš) |
Mihligs (Mīlīgs) |
| Mohdrs (Modrs) |
Mudrs (Mudrs) |
Muddigs (Mudīgs) |
Pastars (Pastars) |
| Pilns (Pilns) |
Pirmais (Pirmais) |
Plasch (Plašs) |
Prahtigs (Prātīgs) |
| Prahws (Prāvs) |
Rahms (Rāms) |
Rahtns (Rātns) |
Raibs (Raibs) |
| Raschens (Ražens) |
Redsigs (Redzīgs) |
Remdens (Remdens) |
Resns (Resns) |
| Rohsch (Rožs) |
Ruhpigs (Rūpīgs) |
Sahtns (Sātins) |
Saldans (Saldans) |
| Saļsch (Zaļš) |
Sarkans (Sarkans) |
Saudsigs (Saudzīgs) |
Sauss (Sauss) |
| Schaurs (Šaurs) |
Schigls (Žigls) |
Schķihsts (Šķīsts) |
Seltans (Zeltains) |
| Semmigs (Zemīgs) |
Sihks (Sīks) |
Silsch (Zilš) |
Sillazzis (Zilacis) |
| Silts (Silts) |
Sirdigs (Sirdīgs) |
Skaists (Skaists) |
Skreisch (Skreišs) |
| Skunstigs (Skunstīgs) |
Slawens (Slavens) |
Smags (Smags) |
Smaidigs (Smaidīgs) |
| Smalks (Smalks) |
Smidrs (Smidrs) |
Spihdigs (Spīdīgs) |
Spirgts (Spirgts) |
| Spohdrs (Spodrs) |
Spohsch (Spožs) |
Spulgazzis (Spulgacis) |
Stahws (Stāvs) |
| Stalts (Stalts) |
Stiprs (Stiprs) |
Swabbads (Zvabads) |
Swanigs (Zvanīgs) |
| Swarrigs (Svarīgs) |
Sweiks (Sveiks) |
Swesch (Svešs) |
Taisns (Taisns) |
| Tauks (Tauks) |
Teesigs (Tiesīgs) |
Tihrs (Tīrs) |
Tikls (Tīkls) |
| Trekns (Trekns) |
Tschakls (Čakls) |
Tuksch (Tukšs) |
Tumsch (Tumšs) |
| Turrigs (Turīgs) |
Uggunigs (Ugunīgs) |
Uhdains (Ūdains) |
Warrens (Varens) |
| Weegls (Viegls) |
Wehrts (Vērts) |
Wehss (Vēss) |
Weikls (Veikls) |
| Wessels (Vesels) |
Wezs (Vecs) |
Zeenigs (Cienīgs) |
Zeetigs (Cītīgs) |
| Zeets (Ciets) |
Zerrigs (Cerīgs) |
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