Research Plans
Often it is not possible to precisely determine the scope of work, as the research depends on the available documents.
Meanwhile, the situation with preserved documents varies greatly in different parts of Latvia. In Vidzeme, the documents are generally better preserved and more abundant, but in Kurzeme, there are places where a large part of the church books has been damaged. In such cases, I look for information in other sources, but sometimes they too are lacking and research becomes practically impossible.
I offer to conduct research in steps of 5 or 10 hours. After this amount of work, you will receive a research report in PDF format, and you can decide on the next steps.
I believe that details are the most interesting additions to your family tree, therefore I collect, translate, and outline church registers and other sources of information on your ancestors, such as their status and occupations, places of residence, studies or military careers, etc.
The research is based on documents available both online and on site, at the Latvian State Historical archive (LVVA).
Standard Research
EUR 549
10 hours or research (55 EUR/h).
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to research the ancestors of one surname.
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may not be sufficient, if your ancestors frequently changed their residences and traces need to be searched in various parishes
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may not be sufficient if the relevant parish has not been indexed and needs to be reviewed manually page by page.
What is required to start the research?
Please collect all possible information on the ancestors to be researched beforehand.
Note that post-1914 vital records are not available to the public or researchers. Read more about how you can obtain birth, marriage or death certificates of your relatives in my blog post.
In some cases, I am able to start research without these certificates and locate the family in the 1935 or 1941-census lists.
What is included in the report?
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translations of the church registers;
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outlines of other documents with important information;
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digital copies of all found documents;
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historical maps with marked farm locations (if requested);
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GEDCOM file or family tree (if requested).
How far can I trace your ancestry?
If there are Latvians in your ancestral lineage, you might be able to research your family history as far back as the beginning of the 19th century, when surnames were adopted.
Most Latvians were serfs and received their surnames only between 1826 and 1834.
In some cases (mostly for Vidzeme Region), it is possible to go further back in the 18th century.
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