Updates

As I learn more and more, besides making new posts, I am also revisiting my numerous older ones and updating them (this makes sense for people using search engine terms to find my posts, to ensure they are not reading outdated information!) So, check back from time to time to see if a particular post that interests you has been updated, especially my “Ancestor Stories”, as I learn small bits and pieces here and there all the time. Typically I will write a new post for any big discoveries I make.

If you are interested in finding your own Latvian family history, a great guide to getting started can be found here!

Ancestor Story: Emilija Karoline Veisbergs

Emilija Karoline Veisbergs was born October 25, 1885, the second child of Mikelis Veisbergs and his wife Lina Brugis. She was baptized at Rezekne Lutheran church, in eastern Latgale. Her baptismal record lists her family’s residence as Taunaga estate, and her older brother Janis Rudolfs was born at Gribuli estate just 2 years earlier. Both estates were in modern Struzani pagast (“Struschan” in German). Her godparents were Karhl Swihkel, Karline Sch…., and Karline Brugis.

Emilija Veisbergs’ baptismal record from Rezekne Lutheran church

For ten years after Emilija’s birth, the Veisbergs family is a bit of a mystery to me. They must have left Rezekne at some point and travelled westward, ending up in Tukums around 1896. Mikelis and Line had at least two more children that I have found so far: Julius Roberts, born  in August 1896 at Slokenbekas, and Berta Ida, born in February 1900, both baptised at Tukums Lutheran church. Emilija must have met Vilis Wihnstein whilst living in Tukums, and the next record I have of her is her marriage to him in 1904.

Emilija and Vilis’ marriage record from Tukums Lutheran church

I won’t re-iterate the story of Vilis and Emilija’s children again, but long story short, they had 5 children between 1905 and 1921, before Vilis abandoned the family, leaving Emilija for another woman. Note that there is some pencilled-in writing around their record, perhaps this gives some details as to why the marriage ended, but I cannot make out many words well enough to translate…

The last I have record of Emilija is her listing in the 1941 Latvian census,  living with Alise and Fricis in an apartment in Tukums (more on their census record: http://chelli11.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/the-1941-census-of-latvia/). During WWII, when her sons (Janis, Arnolds, Karlis and Fricis) all left Latvia, I believe Emilija and her daughter Alise stayed behind in Latvia. Alise went on to marry a man with the surname of Erdmanis, and lived in an old farmhouse in the countryside near Saldus with their two sons. It is possible that Emilija lived with Alise and her husband until her death. I did not ever hear my great-grandfather speak of his mother Emilija, but from my great-aunt I have learned that she died just before WWII ended, a civilian casualty of bombing in the area…

Roadblock: Ozols-Ozolins

From Karlis Vinakmens’ wife Berta Helene Ozols-Ozolins’ DP Card, I know that her parents were Fricis Ozolins and Matilde Ozols, who were 20 years apart in age (Fricis the elder) and that she was born in Talsi. Since she was born in 1914, however, the church books on Raduraksti are useless for finding any other information about her parents. I know she had 3 sisters (Milda, Velta, Lilija) and 2 brothers. Being that Berta was somewhere in the middle of the birth order of 6 children (definitely not the oldest or youngest), her parents were likely married somewhere between 1905 and 1910… I also don’t know if her birthplace refers to the town of Talsi, or the surrounding district. 

The information I need is a needle in a haystack, especially considering Ozols and Ozolins are extremely common last names (you might as well be searching for Smith and Jones). To find Fricis and Matilde, I could blindly browse the Talsi baptismal records… But since Berta was born in 1914 and was not the eldest child, you could assume her mother was at least aged 18 at the time of her marriage/birth of her first child, and therefore was born somewhere between 1894 and 1884. By adding 20 years to compensate for the age gap between her mother and father, Fricis Ozolins was born between 1874 and 1864.

But even if I thought I had found a record about them, how would I know I had the right Fricis or Matilde Ozols/Ozolins? Were they even Lutheran? Because not only does Talsi have huge Lutheran church books, but there were other religions there as well. Raduraksti’s Russian census also will not help, since I don’t know if the family was together as a unit in 1897 when they took information.
This one’s a toughie!

Clues:

-Fricis was 20 years Matilde’s elder, born betwen 1864 and 1874

-Matilde must have been born between 1894 and 1884

-Fricis was deceased by the time his daughter Berta was married, in 1936

 

http://chelli11.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/document-talsi-church-books-1900-1905/

http://chelli11.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/document-fricis-ozolins/

http://chelli11.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/place-of-interest-talsi/

Wordless Wednesday: US Army Labor Service Daughters?

Germany, c 1951. Rasma Vinakmens and 2 friends, the year her father joined the US Army Labor Service Co.

Rasma Vinakmens and the same 2 friends, Germany c. 1955

These two girls beside my grandmother are sisters Olga and Reina Petrausken, displaced persons from Lithuania.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas in Tukums, c. 1938

Document: Janis Sedols

I’ve been hitting the documents on Raduraksti hard lately, compiling a database and attempting to connect the dots between baptisms, marriages, deaths and revision lists. I’ve been ignoring posting a little bit I suppose. I’ve been gaining a knowledge of the revision lists and am beginning to understand them better – which is a huge help, because they really do contain a lot of information.

Just to recap – the revision lists were basically lists of inhabitants of estates for tax purposes, almost like a census (the first of which for Latvia came later, in 1897). Usually on an estate, there were anywhere from 5ish to 40+farms, which would be numbered. The inhabitants of each farm were recorded in 1857/1858, 1850, 1835, 1816 and 1811. Not all years have survived for all estates, but the 1857/1858 (10th revision) seems pretty constant between all the estates that I am dealing with, so this is the one I will refer to most for now.

Here’s a revision list that pertains to my great-great-great grandfather Janis Sedols. Janis is the father of Ieva Sedols. According to his marriage record to Madde Strohmann, he was born at “Strebuki” farm, near Kalvene. Without further ado…

Kalna privātmuiža(Berghof) Revision List for Janis Sedols

 

I’ll do my best to transcribe: “hinzugekommen” means “added”, so these people listed above were coming to Berghof (Kalnamuiza) from other estates.

“Wo nach der ordnung der revision list vom jahre 1858 gegenwartig hinzugekommen” = “Where, according to the arrangement of the revision-list from years 1858 presently added” Basically, what farm within the estate are these people now living at.

“Tauf, Vater, und Familien-Namen” = “Baptismal, Father’s and Family Name”.

“Von wo hinzugekommen”  the literal translation is “added by where” but I believe it should be “added from where”

The small 4 columns on the right pertain to age.

Alright, so my Janis is at the top of this list. In 1865, he began living at Kalna farm, which in the 1857/1858 revision was designated farm #10. His family number is 13 – families were also given designated numbers in the 1858/1857 revision – there were no Sedols living at Kalnamuiza estate then, but the family number of 13 was given to the “Jansons” family. Whether or not this means Janis was related to the Jansons (there were a ton of Jansons in the area) I have not decided yet. His baptismal and family name are included, but unfortunately they omitted his father’s name (which I believe to be Kristaps anyway, from his marriage record). He came from Kazdangas estate, north and west of Kalnamuiza and is aged 22 years.

His marriage record to Madde Strohmann is found in the Valtaiki Lutheran parish book in the same year – 1865, and their first child, my great-great grandmother Ieva (as well as her brother Janis in 1871) was born in 1869 at Kalnamuiza estate, Jaunzemji farm.

Ideally I would be able to go to the Kazdangas estate revision lists now with this knowledge, and look for Janis, but the books are mostly missing from this estate. Knowing that he was 22 in 1865 mens that I can go back through the Valtaiki Lutheran church books and search for his baptism in 1843ish, but I am not entirely sure I will find it, or if Strebuki/Kalvene inhabitants attended Valtaiki, or if it was a different church.

Wish me luck!

Wordless Wednesday: Par Pieminu Rasminai

 

 Update: This photo is of my grandmother Rasma’s cousin Yuri Vinakmens son of Arnolds and Valentina, who stayed in Latvia when Rasma’s family fled. This picture was probably contemporary with the last time Rasma and Yuri ever saw one another.