RÄ«ga is the capital city of Latvia and the largest city in the Baltics. Since Latvian records are largely unindexed, this means that locating an ancestor in RÄ«ga is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
If your ancestors were ethnic Latvians, however, you might find yourself lucky – most ethnic Latvians in the capital arrived towards the end of the nineteenth century. In 1897, RÄ«ga was 45% Latvian, in 1867, only 23%. Therefore, if your ancestors are ethnic Latvians, there is a good chance that you might only need to deal with RÄ«ga records for a generation or two.
Thus the title of this post – how can you most efficiently look through that haystack of records to locate your ancestors and link them to a parish outside of RÄ«ga, and thus a place that can be searched much more easily?
1. Passports. The Latvian State Historical Archives has a collection of internal passports for RÄ«ga residents in the inter-war period. The good news is that they are indexed on a computer for ease of searching. Bad news is that they are not online, and only available by searching the database onsite. These passports note both place of residence and place of birth. Also important is “place of registration”, which can often be the place of birth – even if they haven’t lived there in years. One of my great-grandfathers was still registered as a citizen of Vijciems parish, even though at the time of issuance of the passport he had been living in RÄ«ga for at least a decade.
2. 1940 Telephone Directory. Available online at GenealogyIndexer (has all of Latvia, scroll down to find RÄ«ga). Now, not everyone had a telephone, but it is a start. This can be used to locate an address, and then you can look for parish records for that area. Of course, people move, and sometimes frequently, but a starting point is better than nothing.
3. 1897 All-Russia Census. Available on Raduraksti. The records for RÄ«ga are fairly complete, and organized by street name. The census mentions place of birth and religion, both important tools to locate the proper religious BMD documents.
4. Religious records. Available on Raduraksti. There are many religious records available for RÄ«ga, so if you’ve narrowed down where your ancestors lived, start searching in nearby parishes, and then expand your search from there. RÄ«ga records sometimes contain rudimentary indexes (still handwritten), available at the beginning or end of the book. Check both to see if one is available. If someone is a recent migrant to RÄ«ga, any information pertaining to them with regards to “home parish” will frequently reference their non-RÄ«ga parish (see above with regards to place of registration). This is most common with marriage and death records, so if you know when an ancestor died in RÄ«ga, find their death record first to see if they were born in RÄ«ga as well.
5. School records. If your ancestor went to school in RÄ«ga, there may be extant records for the school that could provide information on where the student was from. Sometimes school archive files (available at the Latvian State Historical Archives) will contain birth certificates of students, previous school transcripts, and so on.
6. Revision lists. These are available on Raduraksti. If you find your ancestors were in RÄ«ga prior to the early 1860s, you will need to head to the revision lists. Now, the ones for RÄ«ga are more complicated than for rural parishes – they are arranged by social class and, in some cases, religion (the religious groups most likely to have separate lists are Jews and Old Believers). Alphabetical indexes appear to exist for some of the lists, but not all of them. Raduraksti has many different lists relating to RÄ«ga, so you may have to sort through them for awhile to find who you’re looking for. It appears that for the most part, the latest date on these documents is 1863.
Another thing to remember is that your ancestor might not have been from RÄ«ga at all – just like emigrants from other countries, people might name the largest city to their home as their place of birth, when they were actually from the countryside. So unless you have a document (preferably of Latvian origin, since they would be most likely to be correct on Latvian places of residence and birth) that specifically links your ancestors to RÄ«ga, do not assume that is where they are from, just because it is a large population centre. This holds especially true for ethnic Latvians – while the share of ethnic Latvians in RÄ«ga did increase in the late 1800s and eventually become a majority in the interwar period, ethnic Latvians were still a predominantly rural population. If your ancestors were not ethnic Latvians, however, their chances of being RÄ«ga-born for centuries are much higher.
Have you searched for your ancestors in RÄ«ga? Do you have any other tips to share for RÄ«ga searches? Add them below!
I have been searching for many years for my Grandfathers relatives “Janis GRASIS.”….I have no photto of him at all. he and my Grandmother remarried..she became Bruveris amd I do not have a name of his new wife..she had sons of her own…I am also rying to find the sons of myAunt Veronica,( she died in childbirth) Dainis and Janis my cousins..Dainis lived with our Gmother as both of his wifes died he has a daughter Zenta..of this side I have a few phottos….can anyone help
thanks
cheers….
So glad to see you posting again!! 🙂
Regarding the passports, the Latvia State Historical Archive also often has the passport photos. I was able to retrieve photos of my grandparents, who were from Libau/Liepaja, as well as photos of my great-grandparents, who were killed in 1941. Nobody in the family had ever even known the names of my great-grandparents previously so I was astonished when the archivist returned with not only their names but pictures of people who were unmistakably my grandfather’s parents. There are a large number of pictures in the archives from 1928, apparently due to new passport requirements that year, but I have one from 1922 of my grandfather, and one from as late of 1939 of a cousin (who also probably perished in 1941).
Also nice to see you posting again 🙂 If I know someone was definitely in someplace in Latvia in 1940, but cannot find a Telephone number in the Telephone Directory…. safe to assume they just did not own a telephone?
Thanks for this blog! I’ve been searching for ancestors in Riga… talk about a needle in a haystack! I wound up spending the summer looking at Lutheran parish records for the entire city from 1895 to 1920 that were available on Raduraksti. The only major break came from a chance visit to the cemetery bureau in Riga. They had a burial record for my great-great grandmother in Matisa Cemetery. I’m not sure how complete the 1897 Census is for Riga. I skimmed the entire thing and couldn’t find my family. I took a look at one house record, and it would seem that the house had only about 5 apartments in it. Something tells me it’s an incomplete record.
Another great post! What a shame that more of this information isn’t available via the internet.
Hi
Just starting research in Latvia and discovered this blog and its really helpful, have researched in UK and USA for many years but this is very different. My wife is Latvian and the name I am tracing in Midegs, which is quite an unusual name. Its great starting this journey from the beginning and if anyone has any pointers or advice before we really get started it would be much appreciated. We do travel back to Latvia often and wife my wife being Latvian it helps !!
Brilliant website, I cant believe I’ve only just found it!
Hope you dont mind if I link to your site from mine.
Thanks
MÄris
Hello from Australia. I have posted on here searching for my Latvian family. My father was born in Bauska Aug 25 1925. He was Julius Helmut Grasis. His father was Janis Jakob Grasis. His mother Alise ( née. Bruveris ), they married in 1920 in Bauska. Alise had a sister Olga, who lost a leg in the war and a brother. I have searched for over 40 years now. I finally have a photo of my grandfather from his passport.
Dad had a sister, Zenta, who married Janis Matulens. They had 2 boys, Janis and Dainis. My aunt died in childbirth in 1968 . Janis was killed by a truck and Dainis married twice, he had one daughter Santa. I found her living in Germany , we are in contact. She knows very little about the family, sadly. My grandfather Janis, remarried several times. I do not know the wives names or even if he had more children. My grandmother Alise also re married, I believe ,to a man with the surname Silins. I finally have her death certificate. I want to know when my grandfather died and where he is buried, also if he had siblings. I believe my great grandfather was Jakob and his wife Karolin. Could be wrong. Can anyone help with how to find more information? I know that my grandfather Janis was a high ranking officer in the war and he was a carpenter by trade. Is it possible to get Army records ?. Thank you for your time. Kind Regards, Margret.