Latvian Genealogy Forum

Will the Forum have a place for one to submit photo's. I have photos from both sides of my family that may be of interest to those researching Baltic Service units post war. Some referred to those Baltic volunteers as the "Black Army" referring to the black uniforms worn. My Aunt also put together a book with stories and photos of the Freymann (Freimans) and Mengot side of the family. My grandfather had an electric shop in old town Riga. The family also had a home in Sigulda latvia he built. According to my mother my Grandfather was born to a German land Baron in Latvia out of wedlock.

Egits, do you mean the post-war Labor Service units of the American Army in Germany...? If so, both my grandfather and great-grandfather were a part of this. I have lots of photos too

chelli11, yes post war. My father drove trucks for the US Army. Many of the photos were of camp life. That
is where he met my mother she also worked for the US Army, translator I believe. In some of the photos you could see the Swiss mountains in the background. We came over on the USS Gen. Sturgis in the early 50's. I found the ships manifest showing our entry into New York, As a side note I had ITS do a investigation and they provided me with copies of DP camp paperwork. It was very interesting for my family research work.

My grandfathers drove trucks too! They were based at Mannheim Kafertal and later Ettlingen, in the 7566 and 7132 units. I also had family in the 8252 and 8850 units (another great grandfather and a great great uncle). I'd love to see your pics, I wonder if our ancestors met each other. I have posted some of my pics on my blog if you'd like to have a look: http://chelli11.wordpress.com/2011/10/1 ... r-service/
I've spoken to a former 7566 LSC member too, he is still alive and had sent me some documents from some social events that unit had.
I've also received all the paperwork on my families from the ITS. It was one of the first big finds I had in my research. It was great to see the Identity Cards with pictures..

chelli11, I went to your web site. You did an excellent job of research and putting it all together. Many of the places you mentioned are those found in my fathers paperwork. When we emigrated to the US were were sponsored by a church in Utah. My father also worked in the coal mines for a year or so , we then moved to Denver, Colorado. I found it interesting my father first choice to emigrate was "Kanada". So much of your research Parallels much of my fathers past.

Oh! Thank you are you still in Denver or did you attend the Latvian church there? I've never been, but my grandfather's family is quite large and would have been there, family names Akerfelds and Ziverts. I guess Denver has quite the Latvian population though too!
I wonder why they left the coal mining in Belgium? Was the job too dangerous, maybe? Or were they interested in working for the Labor Service instead? My grandfather left Belgium and returned to Germany illegally, I have his files... Unsure how he was able to stay!

If you're looking to post photographs of post-war Displaced Persons Camps, I would recommend going to DP Albums: http://www.dpalbums.lv/index2.html

The website is currently only in Latvian, but non-Latvian speakers should be able to do some basic navigation there. The owner of the website is a colleague of mine, so I can ask her to see if we can get at least a basic English version of the page up.

For pre-Second World War Latvian photos, there is Zudusī Latvija: http://www.zudusilatvija.lv/ - again only in Latvian, but it is administered by the Latvian National Library, and many of their other sites have English versions, so you can inquire with them (the "Kontakti" page) to see if they'll be setting up an English version there.

Thank you for the information,