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As I’ve mentioned before, most Latvians didn’t have surnames prior to the early 19th century. They were peasants, and until serfdom was abolished, surnames were not a necessity since they were tied to the land. It was only afterwards that surnames became necessary. But not all Latvians were peasants. Some were merchants, craftsmen and traders, and [...] 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 [...] Welcome back to Surname Saturday on Discovering Latvian Roots! This week I’m going to talk about compound surnames – that is, a surname formed from two words, rather than one. These are a relative rarity in Latvian surnames when it comes to names of Latvian language origin (German language origin compound surnames are more common when [...] The Latvian Surname Project has been updated! I have added 80 new names, including MUITNIEKS and SALNA. I went to records in several different corners of Latvia for this one, so there are names from parishes such as Rucava in the west and Saliena in the east. I’ve got a big push of indexed records to add, [...] So you have established that your ancestors lived on Latvian territory. But what were their ethnic origins? Latvia has been a multi-ethnic territory for centuries, so the distinctions between ethnic groups might not always be so clear in the old records. There are, however, numerous ways in which to establish someone’s ethnic identity. They are not [...] The Latvian Surname Project has been updated! The Surname Project has 153 new names, including BĒRZLAPA and MIEŽUVĀRPA. That brings the total number of surnames in the project so far to 521! I’m afraid I don’t have a Record Project update this time – life has gotten in the way. I’ve also had a bit of trouble [...] When Latvian peasants were choosing surnames after emancipation from serfdom, they were strongly encouraged by the German and Russian rulers to choose names in their own language, and were forbidden to choose names of local nobles or famous people. While not all obeyed this directive and chose German names (or had German names assigned to them [...] The Latvian Record Project and the Latvian Surname Project have been updated! The Surname Project has 100 new names, including KALĒJS and ZVEJNIEKS. The Record Project has 368 new records in Limbaži marriages 1890-1899. That’s all for this update! Updates will happen, on average, every ten days. This edition of Surname Saturday is about the surname Kukurs. I have chosen this surname for two reasons – a person with this surname in my family tree is currently giving me trouble, and I happened across the definition of this word in my Latvian etymological dictionary while looking for something else. The root of the word [...] The Latvian Record Project and the Latvian Surname Project have been updated! The Surname Project has 61 new names, including LAPSA and DZĒRVE. The Record Project has 1075 new records, including Limbaži baptisms 1900-1905, Lēdurga baptisms 1900, Limbaži marriages 1900-1905, Lēdurga marriages 1900 and Suntaži marriages 1900-1905. For all records, Limbaži is missing 1904 and Suntaži is [...] |
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