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All genealogists know that “killing off” – that is, establishing precise death dates and places – your ancestors is important. It helps prevent them from being confused with other people, explains why they weren’t at later events/places, and so on. But if you don’t have a clue as to when they died, this can be [...] This blog has been going for over three and a half years! Over the years, I’ve made a number of different posts, and I’ve decided to put this post together to highlight some key posts that are particularly useful for helping you find your Latvian ancestors. This is intended to help new visitors to this [...] I’ve been mentioning Periodika, an online collection of historical Latvian newspapers, recently. I talked about it a few years ago, here, but it has been updated and upgraded since, so merits mentioning again. Newspaper articles can provide an idea on historical events as they happen, certainly, but do newspapers have other value in genealogy? They most [...] But wait, what about Q? Well, the Latvian alphabet doesn’t have a Q, so R is the next letter of the Family History Through the Alphabet challenge! This is only the first letter I’m skipping, and being as I’ve done a lot of extra ones for the extra letters in the Latvian alphabet, I think [...] 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. What You Need to Know About Latvian Genealogy Most records are in Russian or German prior to the [...] Ready to move on to genealogical sources? See Part 2 of this primer here. Part 1 – Historical Context What You Need to Know about Latvia Latvia is a country in northeastern Europe, bordered by Estonia, Russia, Belarus and Lithuania. The official language is Latvian, an Indo-European language of the Baltic branch, related to Lithuanian. Latvia has a [...] Generally speaking, genealogy is a calm and focused pursuit. However, sometimes you need to be random – this is particularly true when trying to find something at the archives. There is a reason for this – the Central Fond Register really only names the fonds – and usually they are named after the creator of the [...] A wonderful resource for researching Latvian genealogy is the house book collection at the Latvian State Historical Archives. They are available in fond 2942 for Rīga and in fond 2110 for the rest of Latvia. During the Czarist era, as well as during the interwar period, every residential building in Latvia had to keep a record [...] So you want to use Raduraksti, but you’re intimidated, because you don’t know German or Russian. That’s okay! With a bit of work, you can find everything you need to know from these records, without needing to be fluent, or even proficient, in the languages. It is just a question of being able to extract [...] 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 [...] |
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