Now here is your guide to making sense of these documents!

I’m going to start with just the revision lists themselves – many of them come with all sorts of [...]]]> A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that the Kurland revision lists are up on Raduraksti. Good news – the Livland (Vidzeme) revision lists are up too!

Now here is your guide to making sense of these documents!

I’m going to start with just the revision lists themselves – many of them come with all sorts of supplementary documentation as well, but with the exception of the incoming/outgoing registers, these can be highly individualized to each estate or parish.

It is important to note that revision lists are based on estate, not parish. There can be numerous estates within a parish. If you know what parish your ancestors lived in, but are not sure of the estate, consult their birth record in the religious records – the first line of the record should list the estate name and farm name. If you don’t have a birth record yet, consult this map to find the estates in your ancestral parish and start going through them to find your family.

The latest revision list is for 1858. The format of the records are as follows…

Left-side page:

1. 9th revision list family number (that is, the previous list)
2. 10th revision list family number (current list)
3. Names of males in the household (often including father’s name as well – be careful you don’t mix up this and the surname), the name of the farm is also indicated in this column, also numbered (but usually with a Roman numeral so as to not confuse this with the family number)
4. Age at previous revision list, or, if not dwelling at this address, previous place of residence (and sometimes year of arrival to this address)
5. Changed circumstances since the last revision list – such as moving to a new address since the last list was written, death, etc.
6. Current age

Right-side page:

1. 9th revision list family number
2. 10th revision list family number
3. Names of females in the household, often prefixed by relationship to male in the household (wife-Frau or daughter-Tochter), or if single woman, as an unmarried woman (Magd) or a widow (Wittwe).
4. Changed circumstances (this can sometimes be used sparingly for women)
5. Current age

It is important to note that in the revision lists, an individual (especially a male) could appear twice if they had moved during the time between lists. They will appear in their current home, with a notation that they moved from location X, and they will appear in location X with the notation that they have moved to the new address. People moved about frequently, especially within an estate.

The formats for the 1834 and 1850 revision lists are identical to the 1858 one, with the exception of family numbers – the family numbers (should) stay consistent between the different lists, and only changed with the 10th revision, so there is only one family number column per page.

For 1826, the format changes a tiny bit – the farm name and number now has its own column, and it is the first column on each page – also note that farms are now numbered with regular numbers, while family numbers have become Roman numerals – the family name is also now listed in the same box as family number. Any other data in the name column can pertain to things such as status (Knecht – farmhand/servant, Wirts – landowner/manager – remember the purchasing of farms from barons and other large landowners only started in earnest in the latter half of the nineteenth century, so “Wirts” may not yet indicate ownership but rather the head of the farm household), or might include items that should be in the next box over (previous place of residence, etc.).

Prior to the 1826 revision list, things can get difficult, for 1826 is the first revision list with surnames for peasants. The 1816 list does not have surnames, so one must rely on relationship markers (wife, daughter, etc.) to determine family relationships. Men and women are no longer listed on separate pages, but rather one after another on the same page. Beware of assuming that just because your ancestors lived on a farm in 1826, and there is a family with the same given names on the farm in 1816, that they are the same family. I almost fell into that trap on one estate until I noticed the notation that they had moved from another estate in the early 1820s. There was not a large variation in given names, so there could be many families with the same names, with the same ages (I’m still angry at one of my ancestors for naming his daughter the same name as his brother’s daughter when these two girls were born a month apart on the same farm).

There are earlier lists for 1811 and 1795, which have even less information than the 1816 list – usually just ages (current and previous list age, with separate columns for men’s ages and women’s ages), and the 1811 list does not usually include women.

Hopefully this guide will help you work your way through the main portion of the revision lists. More to come soon on incoming and outgoing registers – peasants were much more mobile than we may think, and these registers are key to tracing their movements.

Have you found your family in the revision lists? Share your story below!

There are lots of different types of records available for the post-1905 period – however, as of right now, none of them are available online. The main online genealogical resource for Latvian records – religious records on Raduraksti [...]]]> In my last post, a reader requested that I talk about records after 1905. So here we go!

There are lots of different types of records available for the post-1905 period – however, as of right now, none of them are available online. The main online genealogical resource for Latvian records – religious records on Raduraksti – ends at 1905. But later records are accessible through a variety of avenues, depending on the specific years you’re looking for. Unless mentioned otherwise, all documents are located in the Latvian State Historical Archives (LVVA).

Vital Records

Civil registration of births, marriages and deaths did not begin until the 1920s. Records prior to this time are religious in nature, so it will be necessary to know the religion of your ancestor.

While Raduraksti only goes to 1905 for now, most available records from 1906 to 1909 have been transferred to the LVVA. A list is available on their website here (PDF, the list is organized first by religion, then by parish). However, some records from this time period may still reside with the Ministry of Justice’s Registry Office Archives. This is because of how some records were organized – the registry entries were made into books, so if it happens that earlier years (say 1908 and 1909) are in the same volume as later years (such as 1910 and 1911), the entire book will remain at the Registry Office Archives.

For vital records between 1910 and 1921 (and earlier years as relevant based on the criteria above), it is necessary to contact the Ministry of Justice’s Registry Office Archives (page in Latvian only). This can be done by phone, email or in person. I went in person. You will need to provide as much information as you can, including the religion of the person you are inquiring about. It will then take at least two weeks for them to issue a transcript to you. However, just like with all records, there are no guarantees that the information you are looking for will be found, even if you know for certain what happened where – for example, they could not find my maternal grandmother’s birth record, even though I know for certain when and where she was born and baptized, as these were events witnessed by her older sister, my great-aunt, who confirms the information provided in later official documents. While this record does not seem to exist, numerous others that I asked for do, and I was able to solve the longstanding mystery of where my maternal grandfather was born – in some documents, he says he was born in Lāde parish, in others that he was born in Rīga. His birth record confirms that he was born in Lāde parish.

For vital records after 1921, it is necessary to contact the regional registry office for the area that a person lived. Note that this may not be the local registry office of today – many smaller towns now have their own registry offices, but older records will still be found in the regional office. If you need help figuring out which regional registry office you may need to contact, let me know and I can try to help you.

Census Records

Latvia carried out a national census in 1935 (fonds 1308 abstract 12), and again in 1941 (fonds 1308 abstract 15), a few months after the beginning of the Nazi occupation. The records are arranged by parish or town, and are usually alphabetical based on street or farm name – though beware of only going by street/farm name, since sometimes they will be out of order. As well, sometimes a farm may have been part of a smaller hamlet falling under the purview of a parish and thus grouped by hamlet name first, then farm name. And, of course, just like with censuses in other parts of the world, people may have been somewhere else either for the night of the census or for a longer period of time. The 1935 census is on loose sheets of paper, the 1941 census is bound in book form. The 1941 census has additional fields that the 1935 census does not that are of particular interest to genealogists – namely, full birthdates (the 1935 census only asks for birth year) and places of birth. Of course, this information may not always be accurate, but it does provide a starting point to work from.

School Records

I talked about school records in this post. As a summary: school records can provide more than just your ancestors’ grades – they can also potentially lead to previous school attendance information, birth certificates, and more.

Passports and Immigration/Emigration

In the interwar period, everyone in Latvia needed to have an internal passport. These passports provided the basic details on a person, such as birthdate/place, father’s name, address, occupation, etc. When moving to a new home, it was necessary to register this with the local authorities and have a stamp placed on the passport providing this new information. Stamps were also made to confirm that someone had voted in an election or paid various types of local taxes. For women, it also listed the birth of children. Thus these passports can be a source of all sorts of useful information for the genealogist. However, the collection is not comprehensive – the most extensive collection is available for Rīga (fonds 2996), but some exist for other Latvian cities as well (fonds 2258).

Was your ancestor an international traveler in the interwar period? Numerous external passports and passport applications are also available (fonds 3234, abstracts 24, 32, 33). I found the passport application that was made on my grandfather’s behalf so that he could spend a semester in Sweden to do his practical work (what we’d probably call a co-op or internship these days) while studying at an agricultural secondary school. I knew he had studied agriculture and that he had spent time in Sweden as part of his studies, but I didn’t know where in Latvia he had gone to school, since his family moved all over the country – with the information this passport application provided, I was able to get his full set of secondary school marks, as well as a copy of his diploma.

Did your ancestor immigrate to Latvia during the interwar period? Document collections on immigrants, both legal and illegal, as well as citizenship applications, might be able to provide more information. In the time period directly after the First World War, there were many non-permanent residents in Latvia that needed to be sorted out and either repatriated or settled – refugees, prisoners of war, and so on. Many people fleeing from the Soviet Union chose to settle in Latvia. Documents on legal immigrants and citizenship acquisition can be found in fonds 3234 abstracts 2 and 5, documents on refugees, POWs and illegal migrants in fonds 3234 abstract 1a and 13, and documents on loss of citizenship and expulsion from Latvian territory in fonds 3234 abstracts 21 and 23. Since all of my ancestors were already in Latvia at this time, I only took a look at the abstracts, but since they are mostly organized by surname, it should be easy to find if your ancestors are in them or not.

For emigration from Latvia during World War 2, and subsequent time ancestors would have spent in Displaced Persons Camps, see my post on the International Tracing Service.

House Books

As well as addresses being recorded in internal passports, the movements of people were also recorded in “house books” kept for each address. These books recorded the names of the people, birthdates, supporting document numbers (usually those of internal passports), when they moved to this address, previous address, when they left this address, and the address they moved to. It is thus theoretically possible to follow a family’s moves around the country using only house books. However, like the internal passport collections, the house book collection is far from comprehensive. The books exist mostly for the interwar period, though some individual books may extend beyond those dates (both backwards and forwards). For Rīga, consult fonds 2942, for the rest of Latvia, fonds 2110.

… and more!

What kind of job did your ancestor do? There might be documents relating to trade unions they could have been members of, social clubs or even employment files. If you know where specifically they worked, you could find information on the company that could mention your ancestor. I was able to find two employment files for one of my great-grandfathers – one for his time with the police force (fonds 5604), another for his time as a justice of the peace (Rīga district court, fonds 1536).

Did your ancestor change their name? Throughout the interwar period, but especially in the late 1930s, there was a push for Latvians who had names that were not of Latvian origin to change them to something Latvian-sounding. Records for surname changes can be found in fonds 3234, abstracts 1 and 31, though they appear to be arranged by pre-change surname, so if you don’t know what the earlier surname was, it could be a challenge. I will be addressing the topic of name changes and regulations involved in this in a post later this week.

These are only the most popular types of records. Many others exist as well – look at local court documents, to see if your ancestor was involved in any civil or criminal cases. Rural land records, which I will discuss later, may also cover this time period. Consider all aspects of your ancestors’ lives to try and figure out what may have generated a written record. There are many possibilities!

Did I miss an important type of record? What kind of records have you had success with? Share in comments!

Now you get to do the same for the places they lived! [...]]]> So after puzzling through the various alphabets and orthographies, you have been able to establish what your ancestors’ names would have looked like back in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This is a great first step towards tracking them back through the years.

Now you get to do the same for the places they lived! Sometimes this is easy, sometimes it is not. It will involve juggling not just alphabets and orthographies, but languages as well.

In the various records, the rural places where people lived are most commonly identified with two parts – the estate name, followed by the farm name. Many estate names became modern civil parish names, but smaller estates came under different civil parish jurisdictions in the early twentieth century. Therefore, it is important to identify not only the modern-day civil parish your ancestor is from, but what all of the estates in the area were, since they may not have been from the one that gave the name to the modern civil parish.

Estate names are usually German. In Russian-language records, they may have been given Russian names, but in my experience, the Russian records continue to utilize the German names. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule.

German estate names, compared to the modern Latvian ones, can take various forms. They could be nearly identical – compare Autz and Auce, Rujen and Rūjiena. A further step along, they could be almost identical, as long as there is an understanding of German and Latvian pronunciations, such as Wolmar and Valmiera, Zarnikau and Carnikava.

Then there are translated names, which require some familiarity with both languages – this can be seen most often with names prefaced by “New/Young”, “Old”, “Small”, “Big” – “Jaun” (“Neu”), “Vec” (“Alt”), “Maz” (“Klein”), “Liel” (“Groß”). It may only be this initial suffix which is translated, the rest of the name might be one language or the other. Other place names in this category would be ones such as Lemburg and Mālpils – both mean “clay castle”, but without knowing the translation, it would be difficult to connect them as one and the same.

While names fitting the above three categories are the majority that I have come across, there are some that have no resemblance to one another, either in meaning or in appearance. Without prior knowledge, how would one know that Friedrichstadt and Jaunjelgava are the same place? Or Wenden and Cēsis?

Thankfully, when it comes to finding out what places are now known by what names, resources exist. I find them excellent tools, and I hope that you will as well.

• Wikipedia’s “List of German Exonyms for Places in Latvia” is a great place to start. Most larger places are mentioned here.
• If the Wikipedia article does not have the place you’re looking for, check here next. While many entries are the same, there is some variation.
• If you keep seeing an estate name, but haven’t been able to match it to anything, it could have been a smaller estate. Consult this map. An index is provided, but only references the grid number, which can cover quite a wide area, so it will take some hunting on the map to locate it. The advantage, of course, is that you can compare this map to a modern-day one to get a clearer picture of where precisely the estate was located.

Once you have established the name and location of the estate, the rest should be relatively straightforward. Even though estates typically had German names, individual farms on the estate typically had Latvian ones – and these names most often remained the same upon independence in the early twentieth century, and, in cases where the farms continue to exist, retain the same names today. The main exception to this is again the prefix situation described above – while the main portion of the name might be written in Latvian, the prefixes could be in German or Russian.

Now that you have your estate name and farm name worked out, it is time to place it on a map created after independence. I have an atlas issued in 1940 that belonged to my paternal grandfather that he brought with him to Canada. I also have a CD that I acquired while I was in Latvia at this store that contains detailed topographical maps of Latvia, including farm names. These maps were made between 1920 and 1930, and I have them at the 1:75 000 size. Using these resources, I have been able to precisely identify the farms of all of my known ancestors.

Being able to accurately identify not only what estate someone lived on, but where on the estate they lived, can be vital to determining what church they would have most likely attended, and, consequently, what church records you should be looking at. If their farm was equidistant between two churches, they could have even alternated which one they went to, so records could be found in both. It is worth checking all of the churches in the area if there are numerous possibilities.

Are there any exonym resources you’ve found useful? Share in comments!

For the purposes of this post, I am assuming several things. The main assumption is that you have utilized all of the records in the place where your Latvian ancestor migrated to [...]]]> I’ll admit, this post is long overdue. It should have been one of the first posts on this blog. But it is here now!

For the purposes of this post, I am assuming several things. The main assumption is that you have utilized all of the records in the place where your Latvian ancestor migrated to – naturalization documents, death certificates, etc. I am also assuming that you are familiar with what different types of records contain – for example, that you know what you can expect to find on a census record versus a passenger ship list. All fonds numbers mentioned for records are from the Central Fonds Register of the Latvian Archives (a “fonds” is a collection of related documents).

So let’s begin!

Step 1: Do you know where in Latvia your ancestor was born? If YES, go to step 6. If NO, go to step 2.

Step 2: When did your ancestor emigrate from Latvia? In the POST-WORLD WAR 2 PERIOD, go to step 3. In the INTER-WAR PERIOD, go to step 4. PRIOR TO 1920, go to step 5.

Step 3: Consult DP camp records – you can write to the International Tracing Service (discussed in this blog post) for more information. When you have found a birthplace, move to step 6.

Step 4: If your ancestor emigrated from Latvia in the inter-war period, they could be found on passenger lists, most often departing from German ports such as Hamburg or Bremerhaven, but some people emigrated via the United Kingdom. You can also consult Latvian passport collections for major cities (fond 2996 for Rīga, other cities fond 2258), to see if your ancestor lived in one of them. Passports will list place of birth. Numerous emigration records and passport applications for the interwar period also exist. When you have found a birthplace, move on to step 6.

Step 5: If your ancestor emigrated from Latvia prior to 1920, you can consult passenger ship lists as above for step 4. If they immigrated to Canada, consult the Li-Ra-Ma collection, which documents immigrants from the Russian Empire between 1898 and 1922, including numerous Latvians. The Li-Ra-Ma website mentions that the National Archives in the USA has a similar collection. The Li-Ra-Ma collection website includes digital images of the immigrant files. When you have found your ancestor’s birthplace, move on to step 6.

Step 6: When was your ancestor born? After 1921, go to step 7. Between 1909 and 1921, go to step 8. Prior to 1909, go to step 9.

Step 7: Contact the registry office of the municipality. When you have learned all you can from these records, go to step 8.

Step 8: Contact the Registry Office Archives of the Ministry of Justice in Rīga (in Latvian only), who hold records from 1909/1910 to 1921 (some records for 1906-1908 will also be held here, depending on the municipality and how their records are bound, see note on step 9). When you have learned all that you can from the records available there, go to step 9.

Step 9: Consult religious records, available online at Raduraksti. These resources will provide basic birth/marriage/death records. The records are organized by year and type of record. Records could be in Latvian, German, Russian or Hebrew (for Jewish records). [Update July 2010: Most records from 1905 to 1909 have been transferred to the Latvian State Historical Archives, who are responsible for Raduraksti. They have not yet been added to the website, but hopefully will be soon. Until they are, you will need to contact the LSHA directly.] If you get stuck, brick walled or want to consult other sources for more information, go to step 10.

Step 10: Religious records (and later civil registration records) will form the backbone of your research, but sometimes the records don’t exist anymore, or you want to find additional information about your ancestors that doesn’t appear in those kinds of records. In this case, you will want to consult other records that are available – from 1920 to 1945, go to step 11. From 1890 to 1920, go to step 12. Prior to 1890, go to step 13.

Step 11: A wealth of documents from the independence era can be found in the Latvian State Historical Archives. Examples: The 1935 Census (fonds 1308, abstract 12), the 1941 Census (fonds 1308, abstract 15), civil servant employment files (judicial -fonds 1536, police -fonds 5604, I’m sure files for other departments exist as well, but these are the ones I have utilized) and house books (Rīga -fonds 2942, other cities -fonds 2110). For an earlier time period, go to step 12.

Step 12: In this time period, important records available are military records and the All-Russia Census of 1897, however they can be less complete than more recent records. The records for Latvian parishes for the All-Russia Census of 1897 can be found online on Raduraksti. Military records vary in quality and depth of information, I have utilized them only briefly. They appear to be organized in the archives by the specific division of the military. I would recommend searching by the words “pulks” (regiment). Many of these records date from the Latvian wars of independence, but it might be possible to find other types of military records as well. During part of the Russian Empire period, it was mandatory for men to register for military service at the age of 21, and many parishes have their local muster rolls available. For earlier time periods, go to step 13.

Step 13: It is at this point when completeness and variety of records starts to become extremely dependant on individual civil parishes. Some parishes have large numbers of surviving records, while other have few to none. It always pays to consult neighbouring parish records as well, just in case. To find what might be in civil parish records, search for “pagasta valde” (parish council) or “pagasta tiesa” (parish court), and then look for the parish name you want. You can also search by parish name to find what other records could exist. Due to various Latvian noun cases, I would recommend, when searching by parish name, that you leave off the ending (for example, search “Limbaž” instead of “Limbaži”), since the case form can influence what records are found. Another useful source are the “revision lists”, which list members of various communities, and could provide more detailed information, depending on the purpose of the list. Revision lists for Latgale are at fonds 1881, Vidzeme at fonds 199, Kurzeme (which includes modern-day Zemgale province) at fonds 630. Some revision lists are available on Raduraksti – at time of writing, these are lists pertaining to the towns of Bauska, Grobiņa, Jaunjelgava, Jēkabpils and Jelgava. [Update: All revision lists appear to be online. Though unfortunately for Latgale, there are very few surviving lists from this time period.]

Unless mentioned otherwise, these records are only available at the Latvian State Historical Archives (LVVA) in Rīga, Latvia. To access the records in the archives reading room, it is necessary to register for a reading room pass. I would recommend doing this by email in advance of your visit. When you request materials, it may take a few days for the material to be located and made available for you, so plan your visit accordingly. The staff are extremely helpful, so do not be afraid to ask for help. However, not all of the staff speak English, but most do speak German and/or Russian. All speak Latvian. Visiting the archives is free, but copies cost money, and the cost can vary depending on shape and age of the documents. When I visited the LVVA in December, I spent about 80 lati ($150, £100) on copies. It was worth it! The copies are also annotated with the fonds number, abstract number and item number.

I hope this helps you formulate your research plan. As always, if you need any help, or have any questions, just ask!

My work in the archives showed me just how [...]]]> Before I went to the Latvian State Historical Archives for the first time, I didn’t pay much attention to farm names. Sure, I knew the name of the farm where one of my grandfathers grew up, but I didn’t attach a significance to it beyond an address.

My work in the archives showed me just how important these names are, and they are now what I look at first when looking at an old record.

So what changed? What did I learn?

Knowing farm names makes looking at a census easier and faster. For rural parishes, census records for 1935 and 1941 are usually arranged alphabetically by farm name. It is a great time saver if you know the name of your ancestor’s farm.

Farm names help distinguish individuals with the same name. I have encountered this in my research in Limbaži parish. I was looking through birth records to locate all of my great-grandmother’s siblings when I discovered there were at least four separate men with her father’s name – Ansis Eglītis. Since I knew the name of the farm my great-grandmother was born on, I could identify who her siblings were. I was also helped by the fact that I knew her mother’s full name – Līze Graumane – and that this was also listed. If only the mother’s first name was listed – as is common, particularly in older records – I would have been in trouble, since there were two Ansis Eglītis’ who were married to women named Līze. But because I knew the farm name, I had an extra confirmation that I had the right person.

Farm names can be connected to surnames. This can, sometimes, be a chicken-or-egg situation, but in most cases, farm names came first. Farm names are often based on physical characteristics of the land, and are therefore duplicated many times over throughout Latvia (and these farm names are, consequently, the roots of the most common surnames). In Vijciems parish, where my Celmiņš ancestors are from, there are three farms in a 20km radius called “Celmiņi”. As far as I’ve traced my ancestors, they lived on a farm called “Stampvēveri”. This farm is almost in the centre of the triangle formed by the three Celmiņi farms. I have a suspicion that my ancestors were originally from one of the Celmiņi farms, and then moved to Stampvēveri. Why are there so many farms called “Celmiņi” in Vijciems parish? The area is known for forestry, so it does not seem odd to me that there would be numerous farms called by the diminutive of “tree stumps”.

Knowing a farm name provides insight into another type of history – house history. I have not utilized rural land books yet, but they do exist. I have utilized their urban equivalents, that list occupants and their vital information. I’m given to understand that rural land books provide more information such as farm equipment, animals owned, etc. Some of this information is also available on the 1935 census forms. Depending on its size, there may also be other families living on the farm. They will also appear on the census forms. Census forms will also indicate who is the owner of the property.

Farm names identify concrete places within parishes, which can be located on maps and visited. If you are planning a research or family history trip to Latvia, having concrete locations connected to your family history to visit will make your visit more meaningful. I have only visited one of my ancestral farms thus far (it is owned by my half-uncle), but there are several more I have yet to visit. Contact the current owners ahead of time so that you can obtain permission ot explore the property. You might even happen upon a distant relative by doing so! If you explain your reasons for wanting to visit, most people will be amenable and helpful.

Farm Name Features

• Farm names almost always end in “i” – this is a plural noun ending.
• If there are farms that were established by family members, the names could indicate connections, for example: “Jauncelmiņi” and “Veccelmiņi” (New Celmiņi and Old Celmiņi, respectively). This is not a guarantee of blood relation, however, since farms can change hands, and several families can live on one farm.
• “Leja” means “valley” and “kalns” means “hill” – these are frequently added to the beginnings of farm names as well. It is possible that these come from related properties, or two properties that used to be one, and so on.

Are there any farm names you are particularly curious about? Trying to place a farm on a map? Let me know and I can try to help!

There are thousands of people in the West with Latvian ancestry. Many are searching for their Latvian ancestors, but often encounter a variety of misconceptions about Latvian genealogical research, or don’t know where to start.

I [...]]]> [This post was written for the 26th edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy, hosted by Jessica's Genejournal.]

There are thousands of people in the West with Latvian ancestry. Many are searching for their Latvian ancestors, but often encounter a variety of misconceptions about Latvian genealogical research, or don’t know where to start.

I will be addressing the latter soon, with a step-by-step guide on how to get started with Latvian research. Really, I should have done that when I started this blog, but better late than never!

For now though, I want to address the former – myths and misconceptions about Latvian research. I’ll admit, when I first got started, I believed some of them as well. But now I’ve learned that the task of researching your Latvian ancestors is not as difficult or impossible as it may seem.

Myth: Since Latvia was a battleground through both world wars and numerous smaller ones, as well as being controlled by totalitarian political regimes, this means the records are all destroyed.

Fact: Records survive! Certainly, some disappear or get destroyed throughout the years, but this happens everywhere. But the vast majority of records you will want to seek out for Latvian genealogical research do exist today. Precisely what is available will vary from parish to parish, but because of the variety of records, it is extremely unlikely that all records for a given area were destroyed or have gone missing.

Myth: You need to be able to speak Latvian to do Latvian genealogical research.

Fact: Only partially true. While knowing Latvian is a great asset for research after 1918, prior to that, most records were in German or Russian, both of which are languages spoken more widely than Latvian. But even if you don’t speak any of them, a dictionary or genealogical word list will help you extract the information that you are looking for.

Myth: The surname of my ancestors from Latvia is German or Russian, so that means my ancestors were German or Russian.

Fact: Not necessarily. Latvian peasants (the majority of the population) only acquired surnames in the nineteenth century, and it was not uncommon for them to choose German or Slavic names (even though officially they were encouraged to choose Latvian ones). While Latvia has always been a multiethnic country with many German and Russian inhabitants, surnames alone cannot determine ethnicity. I will be addressing how to sort out ethnicity soon.

Myth: It is difficult to access Latvian records.

Fact: Numerous Latvian genealogical records are available online at Raduraksti – religious BMD records, the All-Russia Census, and a growing number of revision lists. Now, they are not indexed (yet! I’m working on it) or searchable, so you need to read through the handwritten pages, but they are accessible anywhere in the world. For other records, you would need to visit (or write to) the Latvian State Historical Archives in Rīga. Obtaining a reading room pass is fairly straightforward, and the staff are wonderful and will help you find what you need. Not everyone speaks English, but there will usually be someone around who does. If you want to know the Latvian names for records to search before you go so you have an easier time, let me know and I can try to help you.

Myth: I met someone with the same surname. We must be related!

Fact: Just like in other countries, having the same surname does not imply kinship. The most common Latvian surnames arose independently across the country from what were farm names, which were in turn often based on physical characteristics of the area. Remember also, that while Latvian surnames might sound “exotic” to non-Latvian speakers, many of these names are extremely common in Latvia. My Latvian Surname Project is growing, and while I haven’t even covered a tenth of the parishes in Latvia, looking at some of the names there and the number of different places they are attested can begin to give an idea of how common or uncommon a name may be.

Now, if these ancestors with the same surname were from the same parish, it is much more likely, since when surnames were being assigned, there were efforts made to not duplicate the names within estates or parishes. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, but since surnames came about because rulers needed a way to distinguish these newly freed peasants from one another, it would not have happened often.

Myth: A different surname means a different family, and thus not a relation.

Fact: Just like the inverse above, this is also not necessarily true. The family surname was chosen by the patriarch – he chose the surname that he, his wife, his unmarried daughters, his adult sons and their families, would bear. If the family patriarch was deceased, the brothers could each choose a different surname for their families. Since this only happened in the nineteenth century, it is important to be aware of these potentially different surnames within a family, especially if you are interested in finding living distant cousins. To trace family groups through this time period of surname acquisition, family numbers in population registers and revision lists are invaluable. Since this number remained the same from year to year, it can help match up families in the times before and after surname acquisition.

Any myths that I’ve missed? Questions? Let me know and I’ll try to answer them!

The user interface is available in Latvian and in English, though, obviously, the newspapers themselves are in Latvian (with the exception of one German-language and [...]]]> Through the website Periodika, the Latvian National Library offers digital scans of newspapers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most newspaper editions available are from the 1920s and 1930s.

The user interface is available in Latvian and in English, though, obviously, the newspapers themselves are in Latvian (with the exception of one German-language and two Russian-language newspapers). They are also searchable – but with a few things to note:

• They have been digitized for search purposes by OCR (optical character recognition) – this means that it isn’t perfect. If you rely only on searches, you might not find everything you are looking for. If you know what you are looking for and when, it is also a good idea to scan through the paper yourself to see if the OCR didn’t pick it up.
• Diacritic marks matter. When I looked up the surname of one of my great-grandfathers: “Lukins” gave me different results than “Lūkins” did (but both search results included him, since sometimes the diacritic was used and sometimes it wasn’t). So if the name you are looking for uses diacritics, search for the name both with and without them.
• If the name you’re searching for resembles another Latvian word, put it in quotation marks. When I just searched for Francis (a family surname), without quotation marks, it also modified that to include Francija (France) as a result. But if I put “Francis” with quotation marks, I got closer to results I was looking for without having to wade through articles about France. However, this also runs the risk of leaving out the name when it is declined into various cases, so use this with caution, and run some more searches with the name in its declined forms.

I found articles that referred to three of my great-grandparents, and I’m still looking through all of the Saeima (Parliament) meeting notes that include my great-grandfather Augusts Lūkins, who was a member of the 3rd and 4th Saeima. A great find to learn more about these family members!

Have you found any interesting articles about your ancestors? Do you need help determining diacritic marks or case declensions of your Latvian surnames? Let me know and I can help!

But the website can be a bit [...]]]> I make many references to LVVA’s Raduraksti. It is the best resource for people researching their Latvian family history if they’re not able to go to the LVVA itself. The collection of documents available there is growing – recently they also added revision lists for some towns and cities.

But the website can be a bit difficult to navigate if you don’t speak Latvian. The main headings are available in Latvian, English, German and Russian, but when you get to the records part of the site, category headings are only available in Latvian.

So this post will help you navigate through them!

As of today, January 14, 2010, there are three categories of documents that appear when you click “Contents”:

• Baznīcu grāmatas (Church books)

• Dvēseļu revīzijas (Revision lists – lit. “Soul revisions”)
• Tautas skaitīšana (Census – lit. “Counting of the people”)

“Baznīcu grāmatas” further subdivides into:

• Baptisti (Baptists)

• Ev. lut. (Lutheran – most Latvians are Lutheran, if you do not know your ancestor’s religion, starting here would be your best option)
• Pareizticīgie (Orthodox)
• Rabināti (Jewish)
• Reformāti (Reformed)
• Romas katoļi (Roman Catholic)
• Uniāti (Eastern Catholic)
• Vecticībnieki (Old Believers)

After choosing a religion, there will be another choice screen – some religions only have one of the options, others will have both.

• “Apdzīvotās vietas” (Inhabited places) – choose this option if your ancestor lived in the country or in a small village. Then once you select your ancestor’s place of residence, it will present you with a number of nearby congregations that your ancestor could have been a member of. When I first began my searches for my great-grandfather Arvīds Francis, I was confused when I couldn’t find him in the records for Limbaži, since I was told that they lived in the area. When I learned further that he grew up in Nabe parish, I went to look at the options for Nabe, and was given three congregations to choose from: Limbaži, Lēdurga and Turaida. I eventually found him in Lēdurga, where his farm was listed as the one in Nabe parish that I was familiar with.

• “Draudzes” (Congregations) – if you know the specific congregation your ancestor was a part of, or if they lived in a city, choose this option. Many cities are listed in the “Apdzīvotās vietas” section, but some, such as Jēkabpils, Krustpils and Rēzekne, are not, and can only be accessed through the “Draudzes” category. If in doubt, check both categories.

Once you have found your congregation, documents are available by date and by type of document. “Dz” – birth/baptism, “L” – marriage, “M” – death/burial are the three most common abbreviations to help you choose the proper document. Additionally, “l” is “Latvian congregations” and “v” is “German congregations”.

On to “Dvēseļu revīzijas”. At time of writing, there are only five cities listed – but I’m sure more will be added over time. Each of these cities has a variety of lists available, some with very long descriptors, which I won’t translate here. But a list of terms that comes up frequently in these descriptions, to help you navigate:

• saraksti (lists)

• nodokļi/nodokļu maksātāji (taxes/taxpayers)
• iedzīvotāji/brīvie iedzīvotāji (inhabitants/free inhabitants)
• amats/amatnieki (trade/tradesmen)
• kristīgie/ebreji (Christians/Jews)
• tirgotāji/zemnieki (merchants/peasants)
• pilsoņi/ārzemnieki (citizens/foreigners)

And finally, “Tautas skaitīšana” – at the moment, this contains only the 1897 All-Russia Census. Whether there plans to digitize the other two censuses – 1935 and 1941 – I do not know. This collection does not contain the entire All-Russia Census, but only the surviving documents from the Latvian parishes, some Estonian ones and some parishes that are now a part of Russia. Unfortunately, “surviving” is an important word here, since many parishes are not available.

Three terms important to know are: