L is for Livland

Now time for another Latvian province for the Family History Through the Alphabet challenge… Livland!

Livland was not strictly a Latvian province. The territory it covered is now divided between northern Latvia and southern Estonia. This is an important thing to remember when researching ancestors from Livland – if they seem to “disappear” from Latvian records, they might just be on the other side of the modern-day border, and thus the records would be held by Estonia. The good news with that is, however, that the corresponding Estonian records are available online (click “ENG” in the top right corner if you don’t know Estonian), and thus easily consulted. The style of record-keeping will also be the same, since it was all the same province. Later records, particularly those kept by local officials, will begin to vary, however, especially since these could then be in Estonian rather than German or Russian.

While I don’t have precise numbers, just by looking at a map one can tell that Livland is much bigger than the other Baltic provinces, Kurland and Estland. It stretches from a northern boundary that corresponds roughly to a line drawn from the northern edge of the island of Saaremaa to the north coast of Lake Peipus, to a southern boundary of the Daugava river. Many important Baltic cities were located in Livland, including RÄ«ga, CÄ“sis (Wenden), Valmiera (Wolmar), Tartu (Dorpat) and Parnu (Pernau).

According to the 1897 Census, the population of Livland consisted of approximately 43% Latvians, 40% Estonians, 8% Germans, 5% Russians, with the remaining 4% consisting of Jews, Poles, Lithuanians and others. After the First World War, when Latvia and Estonia gained independence, a substantial amount of effort was spent in delineating the border between Latvia and Estonia. Generally speaking, it was accomplished by seeing whether Latvians or Estonians were the majority in the parish. There were some points of contention, however. The city of Valka was one of these, and in the end, ended up divided between the two countries. In Estonian it is known as Valga. Ainaži was also up for debate, and a local referendum determined the town’s inclusion in Latvian territory. A referendum also took place on Roņi island (Ruhnu in Estonian), an island in the bay of RÄ«ga that was predominantly inhabited by Swedes. It voted to become a part of Estonia.

Livland has a huge number of surviving records. I can’t even begin to describe them all, even though most of the research that I have done deals with what was known as Livland (both sides of the modern-day border, but predominantly on the Latvian side). If you have Livland ancestors, consider yourself lucky!

Are you interested in more historical details on Livland? Not sure if your ancestors are Latvian or Estonian? Let me know, I can help!

It’s That Time Again!

I will be heading to Latvia again in the fall, so I am available to help you in a variety of different ways.

The different services I can offer are outlined in this post from last winter. All prices in Canadian dollars. Send email to: (Note: this is an image to prevent spam. You will need to type it into your email program. If you’re uncertain if I’ve received your message, leave a comment here to confirm.) Some highlights:

Compilation of Sources: Planning on going to Latvia yourself sometime soon to conduct some research? Want to know specifically what kind of resources might be available for you to use for your research, so you can make the most of your time? $25 per rural parish or small town, $50 per larger town/city. Not sure which category your town would fall under? Send me an email and I will let you know. Note: This service is not available for Rīga, Daugavpils, Liepāja, Jelgava or Jūrmala. These cities are just too big to be able to cover everything.

Research: I will take on some research projects. $20 an hour, please contact me for further details. We will need to discuss what specifically you are looking to learn and gain from the research, so that you can get the most out of your money.

Parish Histories: Want a resource compiled for a specific parish? You can sponsor a parish for $50. See earlier post for more details.

And new offerings…

Evaluation and Organization of Information: Have a lot of documents already? Not sure how they all fit together? Not sure where to start your research, or whether the sources you have for certain pieces of information are reliable? For $50 I will help you organize your data and provide suggestions on how to proceed. I will help you figure out what family information is verifiable from your documents, and then which information from your family stories still needs to be verified before it can be accepted as truth. This latter part is particularly important, since if you start research with incorrect information, it will lead you down the completely wrong road and waste a lot of time and money.

Family Tree Art: Interested in turning your family tree into a work of art? Contact me and I could make it happen! Note: Fulfillment of this request would take place either before or after the trip to Latvia. Prices vary depending on size and complexity.

Self-Guided Tour: Planning a trip to Latvia in the near future? Want to make sure you visit all the ancestral sites relevant to your family? By using both modern and historical maps, as well as traveling to the locations myself, I will compile a tour for you. $150 per distinct area (that is, if you want a tour for the area around Limbaži and the area around Dobele, that will be $300, but if you’re interested in a number of parishes right around Limbaži, that will still only be $150 since they are nearby). Note: I will only locate farmsteads/homes from the road, I will not enter the properties. If, during the course of your tour, you choose to make contact with current residents in the hope of locating relatives, that is under your own discretion, risk and responsibility.

Ancestral Trails Art: Did your ancestors move a lot? Want a piece of artwork that shows the movements of your ancestors across Latvia? Or maybe the travels of one ancestor across the world? Contact me, and we can discuss your needs. Again, this will be done before or after the trip, and prices vary depending on size and complexity.

Any other work you might be interested in? Contact me and we can discuss it! I’m open to all sorts of projects. References from past clients are available.

Tombstone Tuesday – Refugees from Kurzeme

This week’s Tombstone Tuesday is a bit different – this tombstone in Meža kapi (“Forest Cemetery”) in RÄ«ga commemorates thousands of people – in this case, the roughly 3560 World War One refugees from Kurzeme (at the time, western and southern Latvia) who died between 1914 and 1919. I’m not sure if this figure refers to the number of refugees living in RÄ«ga who died during this time, or whether it refers to the deaths among refugees in general who were spread out across northern Latvia, sometimes southern Estonia and at times even into Russia.

Photo taken by me, April 2012. Click to enlarge.

Ķ is for Ķimene and Ķiploks

So I have finally ran out of regular genealogy-related words for the more unusual letters of the Latvian alphabet for the Family History Through the Alphabet challenge, so we’re off to surnames… so today for Ķ we have Ķimene and Ķiploks!

Both of these surnames are food-related. This is not unusual for Latvian surnames, as you can see by my post here for a Surname Saturday two years ago.

Ķimene means “caraway”, and is a surname I have seen in Mazsalaca, Skulte and Vidriži parishes, all of which are found in northern Latvia. Caraway seeds are a common ingredient in a variety of Latvian foods, the most famous of which is the cheese made for Midsummer (see a recipe here).

Ķiploks means “garlic”, and is a surname I have seen in Gulbene, Smiltene and Trikāta parishes, also in northern Latvia. Garlic is also frequently used in Latvian cuisine. One of my favourite items where it makes an appearance is “cheese salad”, which is sort of like creamy coleslaw only with grated cheese and finely-chopped hard-boiled eggs instead of the cabbage. Also, instead of a fancy coleslaw dressing, it is just mayonnaise and some garlic. I bought it almost everyday from the Rimi near my apartment while I was living in RÄ«ga.

Mmm, now I’m hungry. What are your favourite Latvian surnames related to food?

WW1 Diary – July 27, 1915

Fifth installment from the diary of my great-grandfather’s sister Alise, written during the First World War, just a few miles from the front lines of the Eastern Front. For the background, see here.

July 27, 1915

Days go by, waiting for the terrible times to come. We have packed most of our belongings. Refugees from Kurzeme’s parishes are destroying open land, herding animals, mowing hay, herding pigs into the potatoes. My heart is breaking with anger. But they are also full of sorrow. They have to leave their fields, homes, tables – and wander. One after another loses their favourite cow, the one giving their children milk – there lies a pig that’s wasted away, there a sheep. The sights are horrible. Especially at night – we hear cannon-fire – and even see the spotlights on the other side of the Daugava. Yesterday we were at church. The minister said a beautiful sermon. Yes – Jerusalem’s fate we know, but ours is still unknown. Maybe soon we will have to leave our beautiful home. I think again about yesterday’s sermon – better to be in a small hovel in your homeland then in a bright palace in a foreign land. One’s heart feels strange when singing at church: ‘When the wind and waves blow, then save the boat, when we are full of sorrow, come to help’. Precisely at that moment a wave of soldiers with shiny pikes and guns passed by. Many sunburned brown faces trying – praying to God – maybe sending their own heavy thoughts to the Almighty’s throne.

Tombstone Tuesday – Ivars Steimars, 1938-1943

In this series, I am providing pictures of tombstones from Latvian cemeteries, all with death dates prior to 1945. I do not have any further information on the people mentioned.

Top Inscription: “Å e dus Dieva mierā mÅ«su mīļais dÄ“liņš” (Here rests our dear son in God’s peace)

Name: Ivars Steimars, born March 31, 1938, died April 29, 1943.

Bottom Inscription: “Smaidot māte mani nesa, Raudot kapā noguldija, VÄ“l dzÄ«ve smaidÄ«ja, rotājās rÄ«ts, Bet vakars pienāca negaidÄ«ts.” (Smiling my mother carried me, crying placing me in the grave, Still life smiled, the morning adorned, but the evening came unexpectedly.)

Location: Meža kapi (“Forest Cemetery”), RÄ«ga

Photo taken by me, April 2012.

K is for Kurland

For centuries, what we now know as Latvia was a part of larger empires. In these larger empires, Latvia was not a province by itself, but rather divided into a number of different provinces. In this edition of the Family History Through the Alphabet challenge, we’ll discuss one of these old provinces – Kurland.

Kurland was the name given to the present-day provinces of Kurzeme and Zemgale – the western and southern parts of modern-day Latvia. The dividing line between Kurland and the other Latvian provinces – Livland and Vitebsk – was usually the Daugava river, with some exceptions as some south-side Daugava territories (mostly in the vicinity of RÄ«ga) were a part of Livland. This border was significant, particularly in the case of Kurland and Vitebsk. Kurland was a Baltic province, administered by mostly German gentry, which afforded it privileges that the “Inner Russian” province of Vitebsk did not have. This becomes most evident in the case of surnames, which only spread in Vitebsk in the 1860s and 1870s, while they were already in use in Kurland fifty years earlier.

For much of its history, Kurland was known as the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, which was a vassal state of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until it was annexed by Russia in the late 18th century. The ruling German gentry also undertook what are considered to be the “Latvian” contributions to colonization – the Duchy controlled the northern coast of the Caribbean island of Tobago, as well as part of Gambia on the western coast of Africa, at various points during the 17th century.

The main capital was Jelgava, then called Mitau. Most of the ruling dukes came from the Kettler family of Baltic Germans, who ruled from the late 16th century to the mid-18th century. After the Kettlers, most dukes were from the von Biron family. Besides Jelgava, other important cities were Liepāja (Libau), Ventspils (Windau), Kuldīga (Goldingen) and Jēkabpils (Jacobstadt).

In terms of records, the style of recordkeeping was much the same as it was in Livland, so if you are already familiar with Livland research, making the jump to Kurland records is not that big. There are some stylistic differences in certain time periods (Kurland adopted a column-based record book for births/baptisms that Livland for the most part did not), but on the whole, there is not that much of a difference. However, the survival rate of records in Kurland is not as great. I’m not sure if there is an official reason for it, but it is likely that many of these records were lost during the First World War, when, as you will have found from the diary entries of my great-grandfather’s sister that I’ve been posting, there was a great amount of devastation in Kurland during the war.

Do you have any tips to contribute for those researching their ancestors in Kurland? Share them here!

J is for Jaunlatvieši and Jaunā Strāva

So, what are we serving up for J in the Family History Through the Alphabet challenge? JaunlatvieÅ¡i and Jaunā Strāva – two related movements in Latvia in the 19th century.

The nineteenth century is when the Latvian nation started to “awaken” and gain a national consciousness. Prior to this time, Latvians who managed to make it into intellectual or political classes (or indeed, any class besides peasant or small craftsman) were expected to give up being Latvians and become Germans or Russians. Latvians were considered a peasant class with no history or identity, and the ruling classes wished to eliminate the Latvian language because “every class did not require its own language”, according to Baltic German Lutheran publications of the day. These social movements fought against these perceptions and were pivotal to beginning the road to eventual independence at the beginning of the 20th century.

The “JaunlatvieÅ¡i” (“Young Latvians”) movement started in the 1850s, and was initially literary and cultural in nature. It ended up having broader implications, however. The founders of the movement were Juris Alunāns and KriÅ¡jānis Valdemārs, Latvian students at the University of Tartu (then known as Dorpat). Alunāns translated foreign poetry into Latvian and started a Latvian newspaper, “Mājas Viesis”, considered a pro-Latvian paper when compared to the other Latvian newspaper, “LatvieÅ¡u AvÄ«zes”, considered to be pro-German. Valdemārs, also a writer, made the “radical” movement of listing his ethnicity on the carte de visite on his door – “K. Valdemārs, student. Latvian.” This was considered radical since “education meant Germanization”. Later, he also published a more radical Latvian newspaper, “PÄ“terburgas AvÄ«zes” in Saint Petersburg. Alunāns, Valdemārs and their contemporaries organized study of folklore, Latvian associations, Latvian publishing and the first Latvian Song Festival in 1873. While they spoke out against the rule of the Baltic Germans, political organizing really got started with the Jaunā Strāva.

The “Jaunā Strāva” (“New Current”) was an openly political movement, drawing on socialist ideas imported from Western Europe in the 1880s and 1890s. One of the big changes in these years, as well as the later years of the Young Latvians, was that Latvians were finally becoming landowners – not on the scale of the German barons, but smallholders nonetheless. Despite the increase in Latvian ownership, there were still many landless peasants in Latvia, and the socialist ideas started to create divisions between Latvian smallholders and the landless Latvian peasants, who were left to be farmhands (and some of whom moved to the cities and became part of the urban proletariat). Writer Rainis was a major force in the New Current, along with PÄ“teris Stučka, who would later be in charge of the Latvian Bolsheviks. The New Current movement culminated in the 1905 Revolution, after which many of its leaders, including Rainis and his wife Aspāzija (also a writer), were forced into exile.

Do you have ancestors were involved in these movements? Other stories to share from these time periods?

Ī is for Īrija

Okay, this one is a stretch. But for this tricky letter of the Latvian alphabet and the Family History Through the Alphabet challenge, it’s all I’ve got.

“Īrija” is Latvian for “Ireland”. In this series, I have already mentioned a number of Irish connections to Latvian history, in terms of Irish-Russian military commanders. But today, I am going to talk about Ireland differently – as a location for the migrants of today.

Between 2000 and 2010, just over 45,000 Latvians registered for Irish identification numbers, more than 9,000 in 2005 alone. This means that around 2% of Latvia’s population moved to Ireland in ten years. That’s a significant amount for a peacetime population movement. When you consider that thousands of Latvians have also moved to places like the UK and Germany, the number of people leaving the country becomes downright alarming. This is not a phenomenon relegated to Latvia – thousands of young people from Eastern Europe have moved to Western Europe in the time since their countries joined the European Union in 2004 (2007 for Romania and Bulgaria). This brain drain is a serious concern for most Eastern European countries.

Besides the immediate loss of its young people, there could be serious implications for the future of the countries and their people – I have already heard about young Latvians who have moved to Ireland, married locals (or even other Latvians) and are raising their children without the Latvian language or culture. The promise of higher wages is the biggest lure – the wages in Latvia and other Eastern European countries just cannot compete with the promises of the West.

Now, the global recession has done one positive thing – it appears to be, at least in part, reversing these migrations. I have read articles about young Poles returning home to Poland due to job shortages in the UK and Ireland. I wonder if the same is happening in Latvia? There are those of us from Latvian diaspora communities in the West who are moving “back” to Latvia, but when considering the tide flowing in the other direction, we’re just a drop in the bucket.

Are you a young Latvian who has moved to Western Europe? Do you plan to return to a life in Latvia at some point? Share your story here!

Tombstone Tuesday – Voldemārs BÄ“rziņš, 1914-1925

In this series, I am providing pictures of tombstones from Latvian cemeteries, all with death dates prior to 1945. I do not have any further information on the people mentioned.

Top Inscription: “Å e dus” (Here rests)

Name: Voldemārs Bērziņš, born May 7, 1914, died August 3, 1925.

Bottom Inscription: “Ja mÄ«lestÄ«ba spÄ“tu darÄ«t brÄ«numus, un asaras miruÅ¡os modināt, tad Tevi nesegtu kapa smiltis” (If love was able to grant miracles, and tears awaken the dead, then you would not be covered by the sand of the grave)

Location: Meža kapi (“Forest Cemetery”), RÄ«ga

This grave is in the same plot as the one from last week for a little girl by the name of Lilija Margareta Bērziņa. It is possible that they were brother and sister.