First name: Anna

Maiden name: Rudzis/Radzin

Married last name: Rozenbergs/Rozenvalds

Mother: unknown

Father: unknown

Birth: possibly around 1838-1842 but record has not been found

Baptism: unknown

Confirmation: unknown

Child out of Wedlock: Kristaps Rozentals/Rozenvalds, 1858-1835

Marriage: Geddert Rozentals/Rozenbergs, 1859/1860, record not found

Children: Lawize Rozenbergs/Rozentals (1861-1845)

Death: 28-Jul-1914, Riga, St. Martin’s Lutheran Church

Burial: 30-Jul-1914, Lāčupes Cemetery, Riga (section 17, grave number 19)

More Information

I have had a lot of trouble trying to piece together Anna’s early life. She was probably born in either Zalenieku or Jekabnieku or possibly even Kalnamuizas or Abgunst. Her death record lists her as being ‘about 70 years old’. This would make her birth year around 1844. This seems too late since she was having her son Kristaps in 1858. She would have been only 14 years old. While this is not entirely out of the question I would imagine her birth year to be at least a few years earlier. She is also marrying Geddert Rozenbergs in 1859 or 1860 and probably would have been at least 17 at the time of her marriage.

I have been over and over the birth records for those years at Zalenieku Lutheran Church and have not found a likely candidate for her baptism record.

There were 3 people with the name ‘Radsin’ living at Baž Kauliņu farm in 1855 according to an 1855 Civil Register of Farms. There is a lot of evidence in other records that the names ‘Rudzis’, ‘Rudzitis’, and ‘Radsin’ were often interchangeable. I believe there is a good chance that these three people: Janne, Greeta & Lihse were somehow related to Anna.

There is also a listing for a young unmarried woman or ‘maiden’ living at Kugreni farm in Jekabnieku in this same 1855 document. Could this be young Anna?

We do know that in 1858 Anna was living at Raggenhof Manor in Jekabnieku. She gave birth out of wedlock to a son she baptized ‘Kristaps Rudziht‘. His godparents were Kristap Arenson and his wife Trine. We don’t know anything about who the father of this child might have been. This made Anna a very young, unmarried woman with a baby son that hadn’t been claimed by any father. In 1856, Geddert Rozentals/Rozenbergs became a widower when his wife Trine died at Baž Kauliņu farm. We can never really know the motivation for Geddert marrying again, but he did decide to marry young Anna, even though she already had a small son, Kristaps.

In January 1861, Geddert and Anna have a child of their own, Lawize. They are living back at Stuļģi Pola farm in Jekabnieku. This is where Geddert was living in 1838 when his son by his wife Trine was born. Lawize’s godparents are Lawize Burger (manager’s wife), farmworker Ans Rosenberg, and young man Kristap Lederman. I have not yet been able to connect this Ans Rosenberg as being in Geddert’s family but I believe it is likely he had a brother named Ans so this is probably him.

Sometime in 1861, just months after the birth of his daughter, Lawize, Geddert died at the age of 53. In the following January, 1862, the manager at Stuļģi Pola farm, Kristaps Burger, died of scarlet fever (https://raduraksti.arhivi.lv/objects/1:4:11:2055:2541:27281#&gid=1&pid=24). Could this be Geddert’s cause of death as well?

This left Anna a widow at a very young age with 2 small children to care for. I have no idea what happened to Anna and how she managed to get by for the next 20 years. Did she have help from Geddert’s adult children? Did she have help from her own extended family? Where did she and her children live? We know that Geddert’s son, Kristaps, was living with his half-sister, Lawize in the 1890s so there must have been some ongoing relationship.

Geddert’s eldest son, Dāvis Rozenvalds/Rozenbergs, also got married around 1859/1860. He and his wife had Aspazija in 1864. Did they have any relationship with Anna and her children?

I know that probably around the year 1900, Anna’s children, Lawize and Kristaps, were living in Riga. They must have gone there along with many other rural farming families to seek work in urban factories. Anna never re-married and remained close to her two children’s families.

Lawize married a man named Karl Vimba in 1899 at St. Martin’s church in Riga. (Interestingly she was married with the name ‘Rozentals’ even though she was born with the name ‘Rozenbergs’. She would later in life go back to using ‘Rozenbergs’ til her death in 1945). Karl was a widow with 4 children. Lawize and Karl had one child of their own, Anna Elza Vimba. There was a photo taken of this family which included Anna Rozenvalds. This is the only known photograph of Anna. This photo was probably taken between 1907 and 1910.

Front row from left to right: Robert Vimba, Lawize Rozentals/Rozenbergs, Anna Elza Vimba, Anna Rozenbergs/Rozenvalds, Karl Vimba.

Back row from left to right: Elizabeth Vimba, Anna Vimba, Natali Matilde Vimba.

Anna Rozenvalds died in the summer of 1914 in Riga. Her death record is in St. Martin’s Lutheran Church in Riga. she is buried in Lāčupes Cemetery in the neighborhood of Iļģuciems where her son Kristaps lived with his family at that time. She was buried in section 17, grave number 19, but I believe that over time this plot has been given over to someone else. Her death record says she was a widow from Zalenieku, she was a peasant and was ‘about 70 years old’. It lists her birth place very generally as ‘Kurland’. This has not been helpful in trying to find out where she was born! She died of cancer.

Interesting note that she is using the name ‘Rozenvalds’ when she died.