I am originally from Latvia, Europe. Any ideas how to find out my ancestry?
2007-04-23 16:45:17 · 9 answers · asked by [ Backspace ] 2 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Genealogy
The basic research steps have already been mentioned but worth repeating. First you need to find all the information that you can from family sources including dates, places and any "family stories". Genealogical records tend to be created by towns, companies, states etc. and they are all located in a specific place and that locality is important. It would be great if you knew when the family actually emigrated from Latvia as that would narrow down the search.
Having said that the single best starting point would be Cyndis lIst (see url below in the source box). This is a set of links to sites on Baltic genealogy many of them specifically from Latvia. As already mentioned it appears that if you are of Jewish descent there are quite a number of resources.
Next I think you should go to www.rootsweb.com and register there. This is one of the largest free genealogy sites on the net and one of the most active. There are several Latvian email forums, I've put the link for the General Latvian forum in the sources box below. If you search that board you are bound to find references to at least the locality your ancestors were in and often their surnames. It is a participatory process where you can post questions (much like here) and people will help, you then are expected to share when you can. The difference from Yahoo Answers is that everyone on the Lativian list is doing genealogy for Latvian ancestors and they are a much better resource.
Just as an aside, I did a Google search on "Latvian genealogy" and came up with more that a half a million hits, now I didn't spend a lot of time looking but most of them seemed quite solid so there is lots of material out there and if you are really lucky you may find some cousins who are already researching the family name.
Finally if you start getting to the point where you want to look at orginal records you will need to go to www.familysearch.org which provides access by microfilm to many records. I've included the link to the Library's listing of Latvian materials (I hope it works, it is quite complicated) [you get to it at the site by clicking on the "Library" tab across the top and then the "Place" search button down below. These microfilms are available for reading at any of 3000 Family History Centers and hopefully one is close to where you live.
2007-05-01 02:55:35 · answer #1 · answered by Bill A 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
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2016-04-27 20:52:59 · answer #2 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Talk to family. Get as much information as you can. Your senior family members even when their minds are a little fuzzy can be helpful. Taping them if they let you. The tapes will help you initially but years later when you go back you will hear thiings you didn't hear the first time around.
If you find family on Ancestry.Com in the trees listed there or any other website, take the information as clues not as absolute fact. The information is being submitted by amateurs and even if it is repeated a number of times by different people, there is a lot of copying going on.
2007-04-23 17:40:54 · answer #3 · answered by Shirley T 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
If you were jewish I'm sure there would be records so perhaps that goes for other religions as well. Is your grandmother living? Ask! And ask your parents for all they know too. Do you correspond with relatives in Latvia? Ask!
What generation were the immigrants? Immigration records will have more for you.
I'm still thinking.
2007-04-23 17:02:16 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
I don't have any trouble if humans desire to mention, my first-class first-class grandma is that this or that, they are aside of you and also you must be proud. I have a local american (kuna panama local) grandmother and I declare her (despite the fact that I in most cases establish with being afro latina) and I understand I have ecu ancestry (so much black humans do) however I do not declare ecu ancestry on the grounds that it is too for me to say and I wouldn't have any direct ecu ancestors. I do not believe humans must declare it as racial identification if they've ancestry too a long way again, like if a white man or woman says, I'm white and local american, whilst they are fairly one million/sixteen or one million/32 local....It's foolish to say on the grounds that that ancestry is simply too a long way again to say.
2016-09-05 22:05:43 · answer #5 · answered by gaudioso 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Your first step is to get a marriage or birth certificate of your grandparents and that will have their parents listed. Then like breadcrumbs you follow the trail.....in the case of your grandparents look at Ellis Isle Immigration records and passports........judy
2007-04-23 17:05:35 · answer #6 · answered by nunes_judy 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
go to the places where they lived with photos of them and look in churches which might have records of birth marriages and deaths
and there are ton halls that have records
find out through the work they did what they did from and until when
ancestory.com might help u
2007-05-01 06:04:05 · answer #7 · answered by ~*tigger*~ ** 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Go to familysearch.org and to continue your search on their site.
I was impressed with their data, as they had information for which I had been searching for years.
2007-05-01 11:45:58 · answer #8 · answered by newyorkgal71 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Try www.ancestry.com
2007-04-23 16:52:24 · answer #9 · answered by notyou311 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋