This week’s Tombstone Tuesday is a bit different – this tombstone in Meža kapi (“Forest Cemetery”) in RÄ«ga commemorates thousands of people – in this case, the roughly 3560 World War One refugees from Kurzeme (at the time, western and
Tombstone Tuesday – Ivars Steimars, 1938-1943
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. Top Inscription: “Å e dus Dieva mierÄ mÅ«su mīļais dÄ“liņš” (Here
K is for Kurland
For centuries, what we now know as Latvia was a part of larger empires. In these larger empires, Latvia was not a province by itself, but rather divided into a number of different provinces. In this edition of the Family
Tombstone Tuesday – VoldemÄrs BÄ“rziņš, 1914-1925
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. Top Inscription: “Å e dus” (Here rests) Name: VoldemÄrs BÄ“rziņš, born
Tombstone Tuesday – Lilija Margareta BÄ“rziņa, 1917-1919
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. Inscription: “Å e dus izdzisusi zvaigznÄ«te” (Here sleeps an extinguished star
Remembering June 14, 1941
As with other years, I’m doing a commemorative post for June 14, 1941. This is the day when tens of thousands of Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians were deported from their homelands by the Soviets to the far reaches of Siberia.
Tombstone Tuesday – Strazdiņš Family
In this series, I am sharing photographs that I took of graves while I was in Latvia. All have death dates prior to 1945, and I have no further information on the people mentioned. Names: MÄrtiņš Strazdiņš, born September 9,
Surname Saturday – Surnames of Jumurda Estate, 1826
I’m starting a new Surname Saturday feature – each week, I will profile the surnames of a different manorial estate from the 1826 revision list. Why 1826? That is the year that surnames first appeared in the revision lists –
Tombstone Tuesday – Putniņš Family
In the coming weeks, Tombstone Tuesday will be featuring Latvian tombstones that I photographed while in Latvia. I only photographed tombstones with death dates prior to 1945, to maintain privacy. I have no further information on these people besides what
Latvia: Now on Google StreetView!
Google StreetView is now live for Latvia! Now, after doing some poking around, there are some caveats to this. I would not agree that there is “almost 100% coverage”, as some news articles say. While their coverage of RÄ«ga and