In an older blog post , I already wrote about the transition from German to Russian in church books. In this post, I will explain how to...

On June 3, 1891, an order was issued in the Russian Empire that from now on Lutheran church books should also be kept in Russian. The...

This week I encountered a case that reminded me once again - documents cannot be blindly trusted! They need to be verified, and we must...

For genealogists, invaluable resources can be found not only in archives but also in museums and libraries. This time, I will focus on my...

In genealogy, small details often lead to big discoveries. Genealogists are naturally passionate, and I’ve also found myself, in my...

Do you think that in the past everyone lived "happily ever after" and never got divorced? Recently, I saw a 1906 marriage record with a...

If you've looked through the church records on the Raduraksti website, you may have noticed the parishioner registers. What can be found...

In this blog, I have looked at both baptism and marriage records. Now, it's time to look at death registers in German. What is indicated...

For Kurzeme and Vidzeme family researchers, German language skills are a must. In this post, I will help decipher what is written in the...

Reading and interpreting the records of Riga's church books can be more complicated than those of rural congregations. This is due to the...

Did my ancestors have an estate? No, of course not. But life in the countryside in the 19th century was closely linked to the estate....

Now and then, in church books, you come across words that you don't find in modern dictionaries. How to understand their meaning? Where...

What are soul revision transfer lists and how to read them? What do the German column headings mean?

This post is a short information what revision lists are and what the numbers and column headings mean. Soul revision lists are the most...

Reading church book records in German and Russian is the first challenge when researching Latvian ancestry. See below for visual help on...