After six months of hard work and fiddling around with the new software, I’m proud to present the all-new version of the Latvian Surname Project! What’s new… … you can browse surnames by parish! … you can see old spellings
Where Could They Be From?
What do you do if you have little to go on when it comes to researching your Latvian ancestors? What if they emigrated in the late 1800s or early 1900s, and the only information that passenger lists or naturalization records
Ū is for Ūdens and Ūdrs
Once again we have some Latvian surnames for a more obscure Latvian letter of the alphabet for the Family History Through the Alphabet challenge. “Ū” is a long U sound. ŪDENS means “water”. In old orthography, it would have been
O is for Orthography
I know, I know, it has been a long time since I updated on the Family History through the Alphabet challenge. I was already behind when I joined, now I’m even further behind! But no matter. I will catch up
Three Years!
This blog is three years old today! As I’ve said in previous blog anniversaries, when I first started this blog, I never imagined that I would get the response that I have. I’ve had people contact me from all over
Surname Saturday – Olympic Victors
Time to celebrate the Latvian medalists of the 2012 Olympics! This can fit in nicely with Surname Saturday – let’s take a look at their names, shall we? The first Latvian medalists of 2012 were bronze medalists MÄrtiņš Pļaviņš and
Ļ is for Ļaudis
We’ve stumbled onto a particularly difficult letter for the Family History Through the Alphabet challenge… Ä». “Ä»” is an odd letter – sort of like the “ll” in “million”, with more of a “y” added to it. The only word
Ķ is for Ķimene and Ķiploks
So I have finally ran out of regular genealogy-related words for the more unusual letters of the Latvian alphabet for the Family History Through the Alphabet challenge, so we’re off to surnames… so today for Ķ we have Ķimene and
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 –
Latvian Genealogy Primer – Part 2
Part 2 – Genealogical Sources After reading Part 1 of this primer, and the historical context of Latvian emigration, now it is time to move to genealogical sources – the resources that you can use to trace your Latvian ancestry.