Following along from my post two weeks ago, I am currently posting surnames that were approved and suggested by the government of Livland in the 1820s for peasants if they needed some ideas and inspiration. This week’s category: Personal Attributes
Surname Saturday – Government Approved, Part 1
As I’ve mentioned before, surnames for peasants came relatively recently in Latvia – the early to mid 1800s. When the provincial governments issued the decree abolishing serfdom, soon after also came the surname proclamations. After peasants started giving themselves surnames,
Surname Saturday – “Aiz”
Welcome to Surname Saturday on Discovering Latvian Roots! Today we’re going to look at Latvian surnames beginning with the prefix “aiz-“. This is a prefix that can mean various things depending on the context, but most commonly it means “beyond”,
Surname Saturday – “Ä€bele/Ä€bols/Ä€boliņš”
Welcome back to Surname Saturday on Discovering Latvian Roots! Sorry I’ve been quite busy recently, but now I’m starting to be able to get back to genealogy and genealogy blogging. Today we’re going to look at names relating to three
Surname Changes and Popular Surnames
In the interwar period, many Latvians changed their surnames. As I was browsing the abstracts for the name change documents, I saw many of the changes took place in the first half of 1940. When I went to the Latvian
What Do You Want To Read?
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
Surname Saturday – Early Latvian Surnames
As I’ve mentioned before, most Latvians didn’t have surnames prior to the early 19th century. They were peasants, and until serfdom was abolished, surnames were not a necessity since they were tied to the land. It was only afterwards that
Project Update – June 2, 2010
The Latvian Surname Project has been updated! The total name count is now 800, I added 200 new names including TRĪSTILTIŅŠand PODNIEKS. Today I am also launching a new project, the Latvian Farm Project. The goal of this project
Surname Saturday – Compound Surnames
Welcome back to Surname Saturday on Discovering Latvian Roots! This week I’m going to talk about compound surnames – that is, a surname formed from two words, rather than one. These are a relative rarity in Latvian surnames when it
Sorting Out Ethnicity
So you have established that your ancestors lived on Latvian territory. But what were their ethnic origins? Latvia has been a multi-ethnic territory for centuries, so the distinctions between ethnic groups might not always be so clear in the old