However, [...]]]> As I mentioned yesterday, I’ll be heading to Latvia in January for four months, doing an internship at the Latvians Abroad Museum and Research Centre. I’m going to have a lot of interesting and exciting things to do while I’m there, and I’ll be sure to keep you updated about the different activities going on.

However, there is one downside to this trip – my college program mandates that these internships are unpaid. This is probably because museums are generally a non-profit field, which means that budgets can be tight, so in order to make sure everyone can get an internship, they make it such that they have to be unpaid, so it doesn’t wear on an institution’s budget. It makes sense.

I have a variety of scholarships, student loans and savings that are covering the basics for this trip and internship, but I’ll also be working hard in my spare time to increase my knowledge base in Latvian genealogical records (which I then pass on to you!), and I could use a little bit extra to help support that work.

And this is where you come in! If you believe in the work that I’m trying to accomplish with this website, I would greatly appreciate your support – and you can get all sorts of interesting results from that support! See below for a variety of options, and then email me at (this is an image to prevent spam, you will need to type the address into your email program), and we can discuss your needs. All rates are in Canadian dollars.

I’ll accept a certain number of research projects on a case by case basis, for $20/hour plus photocopying costs. If you are interested in going to Latvia to do research yourself in the future, but would like to know ahead of time what kinds of sources are available for the parishes you’re researching, then that will be $25 per parish or small town, $50 for cities (with the exception of Rīga, Daugavpils and Liepāja, which are too large to be able to be constrained to such a project). Record lookups can also be available, depending on the record, number of pages, etc. Contact me, and we can work out an appropriate solution.

If you’re comfortable with the research that you have, but want a visual of the places your ancestors lived in, or the cemeteries they are buried in, then a variety of photo package options are possible – $10 for a photo montage of relevant areas of Rīga, $25 for a photo montage of a place in Latvia accessible by public transport. If you want a cemetery search included in those rates, it will be $20-30 for Rīga (depending on the size of the cemetery, and you must know the name of the cemetery), and $50 for other places in Latvia. For a place in Latvia without public transport access, it will be at least $100 for the photo montage and cemetery search, since I would need to rent a car or hire a taxi. Let me know what area you’re interested in and I will let you know if it is accessible by public transport or not. Any photographs of areas specific to your family (homesteads, gravestones, etc.) will remain exclusively for your use unless you give permission otherwise, but photos of public areas of town such as churches, town squares, etc. I may share on this website and in my published works.

For research clients, I will add in photo/cemetery packages as an added bonus – for every $100 of research you sign up for, I will include a photo montage and cemetery search for one town or parish accessible by public transport.

Important to note for photographs – I will be in Latvia from January to April, so it will be mostly winter. If you want spring photos (which would be taken in April), be sure to reserve early. I can’t control the weather, so depending on weather patterns, it might even end up being snowy then, I’m not sure. My previous trips to Latvia have always been in the summer, with the exception of one trip in December a few years ago, where it only snowed the morning I left.

Those are the personal options available to you – there are also a variety of ways how you can support and sponsor this site in a more general sense. The results from this work will be sent to you personally, as well as posted on this website for everyone to learn from. You can choose to remain publically anonymous if you want, but I will create a “Sponsors” page on this website, where, with your permission, I will post your name and a link to your website if you have one. Contribution amounts, email addresses, etc. will not be published – just names and websites.

I can compile parish histories more detailed than what you’d find on Wikipedia or elsewhere on the Internet – these would focus on the 19th and early 20th centuries, would provide statistics about the community, different businesses, the goings-on in the parish – whatever can be found from parish records, parish court records, local newspapers and formulated from statistical sources such as census or revision list records and so on. Histories for rural parishes can be sponsored for $50 each, towns for $100 and cities for $200 (again, excluding Rīga, Daugavpils and Liepāja). Like research projects, these will be accepted on a case-by-case basis.

Maybe you’re interested in starting a One Name Study, and want a starting point for some of your Latvian surnames (or you dont know where your ancestor was from, so you want me to keep an eye out for possibilities). I can record every instance of the surname that I see. Since this is a “passive” project, rates will be per instance of the surname – 10 cents per mention of uncommon surnames, 5 cents per mention of common surnames (if you’re not sure what constitutes “common” vs. “uncommon” – ask me. As a general rule, if you look at my Latvian Surname Project, if a surname has more than ten places listed next to it, it is common). Thing to note: If you don’t know where your ancestor was from, and that is your reason for initiating this search, I will not take on such an assignment for common surnames, since there are way too many possibilities to make such an exercise relevant.

Perhaps instead of a parish, you want to know everything you can about a given manorial estate – the starting point for this would be the revision lists of course, and from there I can look into land records (not available for all regions), estate plans, estate records, and so on. These would rely on a different set of documents from the parish histories I mentioned above – they would probably end up being more socioeconomic in nature than the parish histories, which would be more historical and cultural. These rates would be the same as the parish histories – $50 for small manorial estates (less than 50 farms, as per a revision list), $100 for large manorial estates (more than 50 farms).

This is all just a starting point – if there’s something you don’t see mentioned that you are interested, let me know and we can work something out. Thank you for your support!

Note: I am not a charity, just one person trying to help advance the field of Latvian genealogical research. If you would like references from past clients, let me know and I can arrange that.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m currently studying Applied Museum Studies. This means my internship needs to [...]]]> Sorry for my long absence, this last semester of classes has just been extremely time-consuming. But everything has been submitted, and there is only one component left to my program prior to graduation in the spring – completing my internship!

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m currently studying Applied Museum Studies. This means my internship needs to take place at a museum or archives, anywhere in the world – and I’ll be heading to Latvia! I will be working at the Latvians Abroad Museum and Research Centre, an institution that I mentioned on my blog last year. This is an extremely exciting opportunity.

Since I’ll be in Latvia for four months, this also will provide me with plenty of time that I can spend doing genealogical research – for myself, or for you! Please stay tuned for a post on the variety of things that I could do for you while I’m there.

In the meantime, I have three weeks until I leave, and in that time I have a lot to accomplish:

1. Organize all of my notes so that I have a clear plan of attack for my personal research.
2. Scan the rest of the old family photographs that I have.
3. Update my long-neglected Latvian Surname Project – I’ve still been collecting names, but I haven’t had the time to add them to the site since starting my program. Soon, I promise! I have over 1000 names in my database, and more being added every day.
4. Make a lot of posts here!
5. And, if I have time, work out the roots of my Lūkins and Celmiņš families – these were both very large families in their respective parishes (Jaunate and Vijciems), based on what the revision lists tell me, so I need to work out who each of their progenitors were.

Well, off I go to start accomplishing this list!

There’s [...]]]> Sorry for the lack of posting the past couple of weeks – I was making my way home from Latvia, and then, just four days after getting home, moved across the province. I’m mostly settled in now, and starting to process everything I learned and found while I was researching in the archives in Latvia.

There’s just so much that I learned, so much that I could share, that I don’t know where to start!

What do you, my readers, want to read about? Is it surnames and the history of them that you’re interested in? 20th century census records? 19th century revision lists? Military records? Land records? I’ll talk about them all eventually, but if there’s something specific that you want to hear about, do let me know, and I’ll get to it as soon as I can!

On July 4, 1941, numerous synagogues across Latvia were burned to the ground, some of them with people inside. One of the most [...]]]> This post should have been up yesterday, but I was out of town for most of the day and returned with a splitting headache, so I hope you’ll accept the post today instead.

On July 4, 1941, numerous synagogues across Latvia were burned to the ground, some of them with people inside. One of the most prominent of these was the Great Choral Synagogue on Gogol street in Rīga. It was burned with 300 Jews inside. It is at the remains of this synagogue that this memorial can be found.

Memorial stone at ruins of the Great Choral Synagogue, Gogol street, Rīga, Latvia. Photo taken by the author, July 2, 2010.

It is because of the destruction on this day that July 4 is designated as the Day of Remembrance in Latvia for Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

I took more photos of the area, of what is left of the synagogue, and of the monument to the Latvian Righteous Among the Nations nearby, let me know in comments if you would like me to post more.

But back to the topic of [...]]]> Sorry things have been a bit quiet here, I’ve been busy! But in a week’s time I will be concluding my day job so that I can be on my way to Latvia for the summer, and then when I return home to Canada I will be returning to school.

But back to the topic of the post – today is June 14, which is one of the numerous days of remembrance in the Latvian calendar. This day of remembrance is for the victims of Communist terror. It is on this day because it was on June 14, 1941 that the Soviets began mass deportations of tens of thousands of Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians to Siberia and the gulags. Another larger wave of deportations also took place in 1949.

None of my ancestors were deported to Siberia, but I have found numerous extended relatives in the 1949 deportation lists, particularly from the northern parishes of Vijciems and Lugaži. I also know that most of my maternal grandfather’s parents’ siblings disappeared during this time, but they are not mentioned in These Names Accuse (a book comprised of lists of many of those deported during this time).

I do, however, have an ancestor who was a victim of Communist terror. He was not deported, but rather arrested in 1940 not long after the first Soviet occupation began. This was my great-grandfather Arvīds Francis. He was arrested because he had been a counter-intelligence agent with the Latvian political police force. I am told that most of his time was spent dealing with threats from fascist groups such as Pērkonkrusts, but he was involved in observation of Communist groups as well. He spent the late 1920s and early 1930s as the regional leader in Kuldīga, and his work was, at times, dangerous.

He was arrested on August 3, 1940 and imprisoned in Daugavpils. He was repeatedly interrogated and on June 16, 1941 was sentenced to execution. The sentence was carried out on June 22, 1941. He, along with three other police force members who had worked in the Liepāja area, were buried outside the prison.

An interrogation file was kept, and is currently stored in the Latvian State Archives (not the Latvian State Historical Archives, where I do most of my other research). I attempted to access it when I was in Latvia in December, but was told that I would need to bring proof that I was related to him, which I did not have with me at the time. My uncle was able to access it briefly (his mother is Arvids’ daughter, hence the paper trail of documentation was shorter than it would be for me), but didn’t have a lot of time. He was able to tell me though that it was quite a large file, and mostly in Russian. Now I do have all of my paperwork in order, so I hope to be able to access it this time around.

Five years ago, I was actually in the Baltics on June 14. I was in central Vilnius (Lithuania), where I visited the Soviet Occupation Museum, and outside the walls were covered with commemorative drawings by local children and guarded by members of the Lithuanian army. Nearby was the monument to commemorate Soviet victims of terror.

Other remembrance days in Latvia associated with the Second World War: March 25 (the day the 1949 deportations began), May 8 (the end of the Nazi regime in Europe and remembrance of victims of the Second World War), June 17 (the day the Soviet occupation began), July 4 (Jewish victims, the day a Rīga synagogue was burned down in 1941 with many people inside) and the first Sunday in December (another day for remembrance of victims of Communist terror). I must remember to mention each of them again as they come throughout the year.

Were any of your family members deported to Siberia in 1941? Arrested by the Soviets during the first occupation (1940-1941)? Share your family stories in comments.

What [...]]]> I will be traveling to Latvia this July! This will be an opportunity for me to do some more research and gain more familiarity with the different resources available. I will be going back to school in the fall, so I won’t be able to make another trip like this for at least two years.

What does this mean for you, my readers? I can offer various lookup services for different records, maybe even take pictures of ancestral homes. We can also discuss research services, but that will be on a case-by-case basis. Research services would start at $20/hour, specific record lookups would be a flat rate, depending on the type of record.

If you’re looking to plan your own research trip to Latvia at some point, but want to know ahead of time what specific records are available for your parish (for example, population registers, different types of estate documents, etc.), I can also offer a survey of sources. I will examine the specific fonds pertaining to your parish to compile a specific listing of the documents available, as well as more general fonds to find items of interest for your parish. This service is available for $25 for rural parishes or small towns. Larger towns and cities will be on a case-by-case basis.

Interested? Email me: and we can discuss details (you will need to type the address into your email program, I have it here as a gif to prevent spam). If there is something you’re interested in that I haven’t mentioned, let me know and we can see if we can work something out. Any details you provide to me about yourself, your family and your research will be kept completely confidential. If you want to know more about me, I have provided some more information on the “About” page, and you can always email me to ask any questions you may have. All prices are in Canadian dollars and taxes may apply.

More posts on history and migration to come soon! While in Latvia I also plan to go to the National Library, where there could also be a variety of useful sources for family history researchers. I’ll keep you posted on what I find there as well.

One of these people was Alma Kalniņa. Her grave marker is in the town cemetery of Jēkabpils. She was 34 years old. She is buried alongside five others who were also murdered by the [...]]]> When the Soviets invaded Latvia during the Second World War, they deported and/or murdered thousands of people from all walks of life.

One of these people was Alma Kalniņa. Her grave marker is in the town cemetery of Jēkabpils. She was 34 years old. She is buried alongside five others who were also murdered by the Soviets on June 27, 1941 – Jānis Strautiņš, Mārtiņš Rugājs, Mārtiņš Kazerovskis, Jānis Kudrašs and Valdemārs Arkliņš.

I have chosen Alma’s grave marker because she is the one that my family has a connection to. She was the secretary for my great-grandfather Augusts Lūkins, a local judge. Family stories tell me that she had been shot and tied up with barbed wire. Her body was found in a swamp.

This was not my family’s only experience of Soviet brutality. One of my great-grandfathers, Arvīds Francis, was also murdered by the Soviets. I will tell his story in a later edition of “Bringing Out the Great-Grandfathers”. Many other family members also disappeared, and are probably buried in unmarked graves somewhere in Russia.

To me, this grave marker represents more than one woman, but all of the lost family members of mine who have no grave markers of their own.

I was able to view the passports I mentioned in my previous post, belonging to Pēteris Celmiņš and Anna Celmiņa (born Liepa), and confirmed that they are the correct individuals, and thus able to add their information to my family [...]]]> So today was my second day, and first full day, at the Latvian State Historical Archives.

I was able to view the passports I mentioned in my previous post, belonging to Pēteris Celmiņš and Anna Celmiņa (born Liepa), and confirmed that they are the correct individuals, and thus able to add their information to my family tree!

I learned that Pēteris was a clerk/civil servant (Latvian “ierednis”, the dictionary translates it as “clerk, official, employee, civil servant”, not completely sure which one applies in this situation, but I seem to recall a family member mentioning either clerk or civil servant), and Anna was a bookkeeper. In the war (it doesn’t specify which war, but since the passport was issued in 1919, I’d assume World War I and/or the Latvian War for Independence), Pēteris served as a “second line land guard”.

I also discovered that the family didn’t live exclusively in Rīga, as I had originally thought. Anna was born in Rīga, as were her children Juris (my grandfather) and Skaidrīte, but Pēteris was born in Vijciems parish, in the Valka region of northern Latvia. Additionally, the family moved quite a bit between 1919 and 1927 – their passports show them registered at at least ten different addresses during this period (and possibly more, there were some more stamps that looked like address changes, but they were covered in registration seals and therefore unreadable).

By a stroke of luck, most of these places of residence were in the seaside town of Jūrmala, which just happens to be where I’m staying at the moment. Therefore, tomorrow’s activities are clear – it being Saturday, and the archives being closed as a result, means that I’m going to go around town and find these old residences!

I must wonder though – why did a family with two young children, and seemingly stable employment, move so many times in such a short time period? Most of the moves occurred during summer (June-August), but not all – sometimes they would even move twice in one year. They lived on the same street three times, at what were probably neighbouring addresses (3-5-7), but the times of residence on this street were always interspersed with other residences as well. Only the first addresses and last addresses are outside of Jūrmala.

Hopefully, this is a mystery that can be solved!

And I may have already found something!

Since it takes them a few days to find and bring out the requested documents, for the most part today was just filling out the forms to request the items I [...]]]> So I have arrived in Latvia, and today I made my first trip to the Latvian State Historical Archives.

And I may have already found something!

Since it takes them a few days to find and bring out the requested documents, for the most part today was just filling out the forms to request the items I wanted to look at.

But they also have a computerized database of their pre-1944 passport holdings for people dwelling in Rīga – that is searchable by name. The information the database provides is just first name, surname, father’s name and usually birthdate/place and place of registration, but the full passport file should provide more.

Using this database, I believe I have tracked down my mysterious Celmiņš ancestors – the family whose name I bear, but about whom I know relatively little about.

The great-grandparents I believe I located are Pēteris Celmiņš and his wife Anna (maiden name Liepa). The birthdates listed in the database are a couple of days off from the birthdates I have from their gravestones (one day for Anna and twelve days for Pēteris), but they are the correct month and year. No other people with the same names came close in terms of birthdates, and these were the only Anna Celmiņa (born Liepa) and Pēteris Celmiņš that were registered in the same district as each other, so chances are these are the right people.

I have requested the passport files, and these should include photos – I have a photograph of them, so this should help confirm that I have the right people. It is also possible there was a transcription mistake and the passport file will show the birthdates corresponding to what I have. Sometimes these passport files also include things like marriage certificates, so something like that to further confirm this to be the right couple would be wonderful!

If this is the right couple, my research will take me out of Rīga records, and once again into the north of Vidzeme – a region that is already the place of origin for the families of two of my great-grandfathers.

Friday I go back to the archives!

I am currently in Copenhagen, Denmark, and one of my main reasons for coming here was to visit this memorial (click on the image to view a larger one):

It is the memorial to Latvians who died in exile in Denmark [...]]]> My “Tombstone Tuesday” submission isn’t the tombstone for one person, but rather, a memorial to many.

I am currently in Copenhagen, Denmark, and one of my main reasons for coming here was to visit this memorial (click on the image to view a larger one):

It is the memorial to Latvians who died in exile in Denmark after the Second World War. My maternal grandparents were among the Latvian DPs (Displaced Persons) who lived in Denmark during this time, before going to Canada in the late 1940s. I have a photograph taken of the memorial (found in Vestre Cemetery) by one of my grandparents shortly after it was erected, and yesterday I was able to visit it myself, and take the above photo, sixty years later.

Translated to English (in spirit, not word for word), the top inscription reads: “I rest my head on the dreams of my homeland.” The bottom inscription: “For our countrymen who died during the time of exile in Denmark – Latvian Displaced Persons, 1948″. The blocks in front of the memorial, as well as on either side it, list the names of these Latvians.

It has been difficult to find any information on Latvian DPs in Denmark, since most information about Latvian DPs talks exclusively about the DP camps in Germany. This is why it was so important for me to visit this memorial myself: It is a powerful reminder saying “We were here. Do not forget us.”