No Research Without the Archive...

Anyone actively researching Latvian family history has probably noticed that interwar-period documents are no longer available online (on the FamilySearch website). From now on, passports, passport books, and the 1935 and 1941 census records can only be viewed at the Latvian State Historical Archives.

But time and again, I’m reminded — without archival documents, it’s often impossible to move forward.

A Research Trail That Almost Went the Wrong Way

This time, I want to share a case where my research almost went astray.

I had found a baptism record for Fricis, dated 1888. It listed his parents as Indriķis and Ieva. My search took me to the Valtaiķi Lutheran parish, which is not indexed — meaning I had to scroll or leaf through each page manually to find the right entry.

I began by looking for Indriķis and Ieva’s marriage record before 1888, since marriage registers are usually shorter and faster to check. The marriage year can at least help estimate the spouses’ birth years.

At that time, men usually married around ages 24–25, and women were often younger — though rarely under 18. Of course, some married later in life, and widows and widowers remarried. Still, I wanted to start by checking for a first marriage.

Missing Records — and Two Indriķis

Unfortunately, the Valtaiķi parish marriage records from 1881–1889 are missing. If Fricis was the eldest child, his parents’ marriage record has not survived.

However, in the 1880 marriage records, I found that a man named Indriķis had married Trīne. Could this be the same Indriķis? Perhaps Trīne was his first wife, who passed away in the 1880s, and he later remarried Ieva?

In cases like this — when church books are incomplete — it’s easy for a researcher to hit a dead end.

The Archive to the Rescue

In my case, the archive saved the day. The Valtaiķi parish council collection holds several lists of parish residents from the 1920s.

In one of them, I found Fricis and his father Indriķis living in the same household. The record listed Indriķis’s birth year — 1857 — and his father’s name — Jēkabs.

That made it clear that the Indriķis who married in 1880 was a different man, because his marriage record listed him as the son of Jānis and Babe.

Indeed, the baptism records show two different Indriķis — one born in 1856, the other in 1857. Easy to mix up!

Check “Ciltskoki” Too

For anyone researching Valtaiķi parish, a valuable resource is the photographed parish membership cards available in the Ciltskoki Digitālo Dokumentu krātuve (Digital Document Collection on Ciltskoki website).

(Thank you to Ance Ziobrovska and Baiba Jēkabsone for making these available!) The cards are listed under Aizpute District, which once included Valtaiķi parish. Today, Valtaiķi is part of Kuldīga Municipality, and — like many others — I initially made the common mistake of looking under Kuldīga District instead.

This case once again proves an essential truth: Even when research seems to have reached a dead end, the archive often holds the key to the breakthrough.