Looking for immigrant records can be monumentally frustrating. Here are some resources you may find helpful when looking for Latvian immigrant ancestors.
Google Books
This collection changes daily, and I’ve found material about several ancestors in multiple languages. If you’re not using it, it’s definitely worth a try.
In Google Books, I found a record of a pamphlet that ancestor Jānis Iņķis may have authored later in life, reflecting on his adventures in the Brazilian forests with the Vārpa and Nova Odessa colony. It’s called Deewa prahts un zilwezigee maldi muhsu iszeloschanâ no Latwijas, which the wonderful Celmina graciously translated as “God’s mind and human delusions in our emigration from Latvia”. I hope some day to find the actual pamphlet.
National Archives of Latvia
The National Archives of Latvia is a clearinghouse of archival resources for genealogists and historic researchers. With 13 archival databases, including family genealogies, vital records archives, and a variety of historic and cultural archives, this is a great place to start learning about the resources available for your Latvian family history research.
Digital Library of Latvia
The Digital Library of Latvia, produced by the Latvia National Library (LNB) is a rich resource for digitized texts, newspapers, images, and multimedia produced in a number of languages. The LNB digital archives have several sub-sites devoted to specific types of digitized media:
- The LNB’s Periodika website offers a focused full-text search of the periodicals and newspapers in their collection.
- Grāmatas is an excellent resource focused on digitized books held by the National Library.
- Historic maps of Latvia can be found at the dedicated site https://kartes.lnb.lv/.
Latvians Abroad
Latvians Abroad is a museum dedicated to the Latvian diaspora. It includes digital collections and exhibits.
Lituanus Lithuanian Quarterly
Lituanus is a Chicago-based, English language Lithuanian journal dedicated to Lithuanian and Baltic art, history, language, literature and related cultural topics.
Jānis was, like his father, a Latvian Baptist missionary; in the early 1920s Jānis inspired some 2000+ Latvian Baptists to pool their resources and head off to Brazil to found the Vārpa colony. Lituanus v. 33 (1987) has an excellent article by Arnolds Karklis about the Vārpa colony and immigration movement.
Jānis was the pastor at the St. Michael Latvian Baptist church in Riga, he was a poet and author of a hundred or so hymns, and published a newsletter that provided some rich details on life in the Brazilian colonies and helped Latvian Baptists in Canada, the United States and Brazil stay connected with folks in the home country. This whole family is fascinating, and I hope to one day be able to find more detailed family records and, dare I hope, perhaps even a monograph or biographical record for Jānis or his father Jekabs, one of the founders of the Latvian Baptist missionary movement.
Looking at inbound passenger lists, I confirmed the ship record for Rosalie Purweet by locating her sister Emma Helsing and Emma’s 3 young children on the same ship. They all emigrated from Latvia in 1892. My mother’s records indicated that Rosalie came over with Emma to help as a child-minder, but it’s nice to get confirmation that this is Rosalie’s record by virtue of Emma’s passage on the same ship with her children.
