Discovering Latvian Roots » websites

Day of Remembrance – Occupation Day

Antra — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 23:55:38 +0000

As mentioned in my June 14 Day of Remembrance post a few days ago, June 17 is the day that Latvia was invaded by the Soviet Union in 1940. It is an official remembrance day, and is also one that requires the display of the Latvian flag (with the black ribbon of mourning) on all public and private buildings.

For those who want to read more on this period of Latvian history: The Latvian Institute has a page on these events, and Wikipedia also has a good overview.

For those planning trips to Latvia, it is imperative to visit the Occupation Museum, to learn more about this first Soviet occupation period, as well as the Nazi occupation and the second Soviet occupation that lasted until 1991. It is hard to miss – it is the giant grey and black bunker in the Old Town of Rīga.

Do you or your relatives have stories to share about the occupation of Latvia? Any memories of this day? Share in comments.

Navigating Raduraksti

Antra — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 07:03:39 +0000

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:

pagasts (parish)

pilsēta (town)

miests (small village)

Often, there is the town/village proper, as well as the surrounding country territory that was called by the same name – for example, the town of Limbaži, and the surrounding Limbažu parish. Therefore, in these records, if your ancestors lived in the country, go for “pagasts”, if they lived in town, go for “miests” or “pilsēta”. If you don’t know, or they lived on the outskirts of town, check both.

I hope that this guide makes your searches on “Raduraksti” more fruitful!

Tips, Tricks and Websites

Antra — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:36:50 +0000

[This post is written for the 24th edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy, hosted by Al's Polish-American Genealogy Research.]

The topic for this Carnival is Tips, Tricks and Websites.

I’ve already outlined the websites useful for Latvian research, but I’ll list them here again, with some other potentially useful websites:

LVVA’s “Raduraksti” – the most useful Latvian genealogical website, with images of parish registers from all over Latvia for a variety of religions, in addition to the Latvian districts of the 1895 All-Russia Census.
ROOTS=SAKNES – provides a lot of historical context and background to Latvian research.
Ciltskoks – a blog (in Latvian only) on Latvian genealogy research.
Ciltskoks.lv – the main website that goes along with the blog above. It bills itself as an Internet portal that has a focus on genealogy, but I have only started using it, and have not seen much in the way of genealogical discussion.
1188.lv – Telephone directory for modern-day Latvia (“personu katalogs” for personal directory, default is business), which may help locate living relatives. Registration is required to view phone numbers, but names and regions are visible without registration.

Now on to the tips and tricks!

Invest in dictionaries translating to German, Russian and Latvian. Most older Latvian documents are in German or Russian, while post-1918 documents will be in Latvian.
Familiarize yourself with Russian handwriting – it looks very different from typed Russian. Additionally, German-language records may be in Kurrent or Sütterlin handwriting, which can be quite different from standard Latin handwriting.
Russian records will sometimes have the name recorded in German as well. Comparing the Russian spelling of the name with the German spelling of the name can help determine its Latvian spelling. For example, my surname, Celmiņa, will often be spelled “Zelmiņ” in German, but in Russian – “Целминь”. The “Ц” indicates that it would be spelled with a “C” in Latvian.
Be prepared to spend a lot of time on your research. Unlike many basic US, Canadian or British records, Latvian records are not indexed, and may take many hours of scrolling through microfilms or clicking through Raduraksti images, deciphering handwriting, to find just one piece of information.
Do not assume that if someone has the same surname, that they are a relative. Latvian surnames were only granted in the 19th century, and this process took many different forms – they may have been chosen by the now-bearers of the name, they could have been assigned by a local official, they could have been a former nickname/occupation/manor name/farm name/location-based name. All of this can lead to the same surname being used by many unrelated groups.
Find out as much information as you can from living relatives – due to lack of indexes, it is imperative to know what parish relatives were from. For common surnames, it is further necessary to know as much as possible about a person – middle names, occupations, birthdates, etc. since there may be several people with that name in the parish.
Utilize different record sources – the availability of parish registers on “Raduraksti” differs from the availability of parish registers through the LDS Family History Library. If the time period/parish you’re looking for isn’t available at one, consult the other.

Thanks for reading my first Blog Carnival entry! If you want any help deciphering handwriting, or in converting surnames between languages, just let me know and I can try to help you!