What do you have to solve this week? Just a simple keyword puzzle. By solving this puzzle, you’ll reveal the tools that you need to solve the puzzles *within* the “A President For His Country” short story, which is coming
Come Solve The Next Puzzle!
The newest puzzle is available on my fiction site! This time, you will be revealing the name of the short story – and by doing so, find your way to the prologue of the story! As before, first ten comments
My Fiction Project is Live!
So today I’m celebrating my fourth blogiversary! I started this blog on October 10, 2009, and it has been quite the adventure! More and more people are coming here to learn about how to find their Latvian roots. This is
The Spanish Flu Epidemic in Latvia
Most of you are probably familiar with the Spanish flu epidemic that ravaged the world from the beginning of 1918 to the end of 1920 and killed somewhere between 3 and 5 percent of the world’s population. But do you
WW1 Diary – October 5, 1916
Twenty-ninth installment from the diary of my great-grandfather’s sister Alise, written during the First World War. When the diary starts, she is living just a few miles from the front lines of the Eastern Front, and is then forced to
Research on Second World War Displaced Persons
I am posting this on behalf of a member of the FEEFHS (Federation of Eastern European Family History Societies) Facebook group, since I know a number of readers here are descendants of Second World War Displaced Persons, and could thus
Bringing Out the Great-Grandfathers, Part 2
Part 2 in my series on my great-grandfathers. Part 1 is here. Today’s great-grandfather is ArvÄ«ds Vilhelms Francis. ArvÄ«ds was born on August 7th, 1894 (Old Style) at one o’clock in the afternoon at Kroņi farm on the NÄbe estate,
Bringing Out the Great-Grandfathers, Part 1 (updated)
I was looking through old blog posts recently, and realized that I started a series of posts on my great-grandfathers (almost four years ago now), but that I never finished the series. I only talked about one of my great-grandfathers!
Surname Saturday – Missing Parishes!
If you’ve been paying attention to the Latvian Surname Project, you’ll have noticed that I’ve filled in some gaps in the map on the front page – having added names from the parishes of Ainaži, IpiÄ·i, Lode and Vaidava, I
Tombstone Tuesday – MÄrtiņš Gutmans, 1869-1923
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, October 2012. Click to enlarge. Name: