Discovering Latvian Roots » farms

Paying Attention to Details

Antra — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 13:37:25 +0000

It is too easy, especially when reading records that require interpretation of handwriting in an unfamiliar language, to pick out the main details – date of birth and parents – but ignore the details that are “not strictly necessary” – godparents, occupations, and so on. It is also easy to just scan for the surnames you’re looking for and ignore the other records.

But eventually you may get stuck in your research. Someone seems to have spontaneously appeared in a parish with no previous connections to it – no birth record, not even a marriage record, but suddenly they are there and having babies with a legal spouse. How can you find where they came from?

Pay attention to the “not strictly necessary” details!

I had a situation like this come up with a pair of my great-great-grandparents, Roberts Francis and Dorotea Matilde Plūme. They were living on the Nabe estate, where they had many children, including my great-grandfather Arvīds. Dorotea had a historical connection to the estate – I could find her birth record – but I could find no sign of her marriage to Roberts or of his birth record. Thus it seemed likely that he was from somewhere further afield.

The key to solving this mystery lay in the birth record of my great-grandfather’s sister Alise. In her birth record, one of the godparents is a woman by the name of Natalie Francis, who was listed as living in Vilceni, an estate approximately 35km northeast of Nabe. The surname Francis is not common in Latvia, therefore it is possible that Natalie was Roberts’ sister or sister-in-law. It gave me a new idea of where to try searching – the closest church to Vilceni was the Matīši parish church, so that was my first stop.

And I hit gold! In a short period of time I had found Roberts’ and Dorotea’s marriage record, proving that my hunch was correct. Happily, this parish also maintained the detailed marriage records, so it gave me everything I needed to know to work further back, as well as confirmation that I had the right couple. Roberts Francis of Lielmārens farm on the Milīte estate (born March 1859, parents Jēkabs and Jūlija) married Dorotea Matilde Plūme of Kroņi farm on the Nabe estate (born August 1865, parents Mārtiņš and Dārta) in August of 1884. From here, I was also able to also find Roberts’ birth record.

It also pays off to know the surnames of other people living on the same farm, or nearby farms, since your ancestors may have appeared as godparents to their children. These references can also help narrow down dates of marriage or death. For example, my great-great-grandmother Līze Eglītis (b. Graumane) appeared as the godmother of many children who also lived on her family’s farm – which helped narrow down when her father died, as well as when she got married. In 1873, she was referred to as the “landlord’s daughter” Līze Graumane, but in early 1875 was referred to as “landlady” Līze Eglīte. This shows that between mid-1873 and early 1875 two significant events happened in Līze’s life – her father probably died, and she got married. Sure enough, Līze’s father Marcis died in December of 1873. The marriage records for this time period in Limbaži are missing, so I can’t be certain as to the precise marriage date of Līze and her husband Ansis Eglītis, but I’ve got a much smaller window now – all thanks to paying attention to the listings of godparents in the records of other families.

Have you gotten lucky following a hunch based on the “not strictly necessary” details? Have you found useful data about your family in the records of other families? Share your stories below!

Working With Revision Lists

Antra — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 03:34:22 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that the Kurland revision lists are up on Raduraksti. Good news – the Livland (Vidzeme) revision lists are up too!

Now here is your guide to making sense of these documents!

I’m going to start with just the revision lists themselves – many of them come with all sorts of supplementary documentation as well, but with the exception of the incoming/outgoing registers, these can be highly individualized to each estate or parish.

It is important to note that revision lists are based on estate, not parish. There can be numerous estates within a parish. If you know what parish your ancestors lived in, but are not sure of the estate, consult their birth record in the religious records – the first line of the record should list the estate name and farm name. If you don’t have a birth record yet, consult this map to find the estates in your ancestral parish and start going through them to find your family.

The latest revision list is for 1858. The format of the records are as follows…

Left-side page:

9th revision list family number (that is, the previous list)
10th revision list family number (current list)
Names of males in the household (often including father’s name as well – be careful you don’t mix up this and the surname), the name of the farm is also indicated in this column, also numbered (but usually with a Roman numeral so as to not confuse this with the family number)
Age at previous revision list, or, if not dwelling at this address, previous place of residence (and sometimes year of arrival to this address)
Changed circumstances since the last revision list – such as moving to a new address since the last list was written, death, etc.
Current age

Right-side page:

9th revision list family number
10th revision list family number
Names of females in the household, often prefixed by relationship to male in the household (wife-Frau or daughter-Tochter), or if single woman, as an unmarried woman (Magd) or a widow (Wittwe).
Changed circumstances (this can sometimes be used sparingly for women)
Current age

It is important to note that in the revision lists, an individual (especially a male) could appear twice if they had moved during the time between lists. They will appear in their current home, with a notation that they moved from location X, and they will appear in location X with the notation that they have moved to the new address. People moved about frequently, especially within an estate.

The formats for the 1834 and 1850 revision lists are identical to the 1858 one, with the exception of family numbers – the family numbers (should) stay consistent between the different lists, and only changed with the 10th revision, so there is only one family number column per page.

For 1826, the format changes a tiny bit – the farm name and number now has its own column, and it is the first column on each page – also note that farms are now numbered with regular numbers, while family numbers have become Roman numerals – the family name is also now listed in the same box as family number. Any other data in the name column can pertain to things such as status (Knecht – farmhand/servant, Wirts – landowner/manager – remember the purchasing of farms from barons and other large landowners only started in earnest in the latter half of the nineteenth century, so “Wirts” may not yet indicate ownership but rather the head of the farm household), or might include items that should be in the next box over (previous place of residence, etc.).

Prior to the 1826 revision list, things can get difficult, for 1826 is the first revision list with surnames for peasants. The 1816 list does not have surnames, so one must rely on relationship markers (wife, daughter, etc.) to determine family relationships. Men and women are no longer listed on separate pages, but rather one after another on the same page. Beware of assuming that just because your ancestors lived on a farm in 1826, and there is a family with the same given names on the farm in 1816, that they are the same family. I almost fell into that trap on one estate until I noticed the notation that they had moved from another estate in the early 1820s. There was not a large variation in given names, so there could be many families with the same names, with the same ages (I’m still angry at one of my ancestors for naming his daughter the same name as his brother’s daughter when these two girls were born a month apart on the same farm).

There are earlier lists for 1811 and 1795, which have even less information than the 1816 list – usually just ages (current and previous list age, with separate columns for men’s ages and women’s ages), and the 1811 list does not usually include women.

Hopefully this guide will help you work your way through the main portion of the revision lists. More to come soon on incoming and outgoing registers – peasants were much more mobile than we may think, and these registers are key to tracing their movements.

Have you found your family in the revision lists? Share your story below!

Project Update – June 2, 2010

Antra — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 23:09:09 +0000

The Latvian Surname Project has been updated!

The total name count is now 800, I added 200 new names including TRĪSTILTIŅŠ and PODNIEKS.

Today I am also launching a new project, the Latvian Farm Project. The goal of this project is to match old farm names to their pre-WW2 parishes, as well as begin a study on farm naming practices. Eventually, I hope to tie this in with the Surname Project and the Record Project to create parish profiles and also come up with statistics of how often people may have chosen farm names as surnames. So far farms are listed for the parish of Ainaži.

Be sure to tune in tomorrow for a very special announcement!