The Cirksis Family

There are many more photos to come! I am quite eager to have the scanning part of my project done so that I can get on with some "real" in-depth  research. It was with that in mind that I hired a professional scanning service  at a local shop. The scanning was to have been completed about a week ago. Unfortunately, the shop mistakenly scanned the photos at a very low resolution. Obviously this has put a bit of a spanner in the works as I can't invest any money in the software and services I will need to obtain until I am sure the scanning is complete and paid for. Rest assured that I will continue to post something at least once a month. As I mentioned in a past post this will mean that some of the commentary will be a little superficial at times. As new information comes to light, I will update these posts. I am also aware that some of the photos appear a little on the small side in the posts. If you haven't tried it already, they are all "clickable" an...

For most people born into families that have enjoyed several generations of freedom and democracy  -as is the case for most people living in Western society - it is difficult to even imagine the day to day fear and depression of living under an oppressive regime.  The closest I can ever hope to come to understanding is through the photos of some of my family members that stayed in Latvia during the occupation. Not all of the photos are depressing, some show how difficult it is to crush the human spirit. The following few photos illustrate: I believe this photo was taken in the 1970s in Latvia. It shows My grandmother, Katrine CIRKSE in her house.  While it is a relatively new tradition to smile for photographs, the look on my grandmother's face speaks to me of a deep sadness. By this stage of her life she had outlived her husband and two out of three of her children.  It must have been difficult for my farther to see photos like this and not be able to return to ...

Edit: New information from the International Tracing Service suggests that the photos contained in this post may actually be from Barum DP Camp in approximately 1948. If you are able to confirm this or otherwise identify the location pictured, please leave a comment below and I will amend the captions. I have been busily scanning photos and documents for the past several weeks so unfortunately I haven't been updating this site as much as I would like. On a positive note, just as I think I have nearly scanned everything, I find more documents and photos. This meaning that once I have finished scanning, I will have a heap of material to post from. In the mean time I will try and post a few bits and pieces as I scan them. Unfortunately, because I am busy scanning at the moment, I won't have much time to research and write about what I post so my intention is to update some of these posts in the future as more information comes to light. In the mean time here are some photos f...

Over the next few months I intend to post some old photos that my father Janis CIRKSIS kept in various albums. I'll post a couple of photos here with some quick descriptions so you have some idea of what is to come. As I post photos, it is my intention to research them as much as possible. If you can add any information about anything I post please feel free to comment below. Miķēlis ČIRKŠIS, my Grandfather. I believe this photo was taking slightly after or possibly during WWI. Miķēlis was a Latvian freedom fighter. I am hoping to trace some record of where and on which side he fought during the war - before he fought for Latvian independence .  

Presented on the historical  and cultural background of the country and people of his birth. [The following is a short life story written by my father in September 2000. My father, born in Latvia, was a Displaced Person (DP) after WWII. From an Australian point of view, Janis' story shows us how important immigration has been -and in my view, continues to be - for this country. I have used Optical Character Recognition software to transfer the story from hard copy to soft copy. As it turns out this is a far from perfect process and there were many error that I had to correct so please forgive any errors that remain.] My name is Jânis Osvalds Čirkšis (pronounced in English “Yahnis Osvalds Tsirksis"), born on 31" July 1924, in Níca at the South-Eastern corner of Latvia, a small country, the size of Tasmania, adjoining the South-Western shores of the Baltic sea. l was born the second son of my Latvian parents, preceded by a 2 years older brother and subsequently fo...

Coming to this space very shortly : The history of the Cirksis family. Of course it is only my branch of the Cirksis family but I will endeavour to find connections with family members all over the world. While physical records deteriorate and are lost, it has been said that once information is uploaded to the net, it stays there. This website forms part of my research into my personal family tree and is intended to preserve the 'narrative' of the Cirksis family for future generations. I will begin with some history on Latvia. I have several essays written by myself and by Janis Cirksis. The first ones I will post are on the history of Latvia and Janis' life story. I will also post essays and letters, written by family members, as a basis for understanding how they thought of the world at various times of their lives. And now the disclaimer: It is important to note that the ideas expressed in this blog are my own and are not associated in any way with any organisati...