Latvian History Links

At the moment, this page is a work in progress. In the end I hope to provide an extensive list of Latvian history and Latvian genealogy resources. At this time it will only be a couple of the more important links, but I should be able to provide a more comprehensive list shortly.

Discovering Latvian Roots
Discovering Latvian roots is probably the most comprehensive English language Latvian geneology sites on the internet. It is updated frequently and has links to some of the most important sources of Latvian genealogy on the internet. It has some very useful information for people who are starting out and the author has also setup a Latvian Names wiki which could be useful for some.

http://www.celmina.com/genealogy/

Raduraksti
Raduraksti is an archive of historical records that provides access "to the church books of Evangelic Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Baptist, Greek Catholic, Old Believers’, Reformed Protestant congregations, vital records of Rabbinate, revision lists of Livland and Courland, materials of Russian Empire Census (1897) in provinces of Courland, Livland and Vitebsk". The main pages have been translated into English, Latvian, German and Russian (links at the top). You may encounter some trouble locating ancestors however as many of the records are in hand written Russian and German and unfortunately they are not searchable (they are scanned image files). You will need to know the birth date and place of your ancestors as wellDiscovering Latvian Roots has some good guides on how tot get started.

http://www.lvva-raduraksti.lv/en.html

Latviešu dziesmu serveris
This site is in Latvian however using google translate it is usable in english... Dziesmas.lv is the largest Latvian song server for more than 12 years, offering the opportunity for everyone to share their knowledge of Latvian songs. There are more than 8 thousand Latvian lyrics. To search for a song enter the name of the snippets of text or author in the Search box and press "Search".

Google translate can provide translations for the songs that while not 100% accurate, should give you the gist of the song's theme.

http://www.dziesmas.lv

Latvian Heritage
This is an excellent resource for those interested in Latvian culture and history. In particular, there is a wealth of information about the inter-war period during which Latvian culture prospered and several accounts from exiles and those who returned to Latvia both during and after the occupation. There are also some links to sheet music for some traditional Latvian songs under the "Music" tab.

http://www.latvians.com

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Letters from Latvia - Nīca 30th of April 1955

Displaced Person Camps After WWII - Photos

Still Live!