This research would not have been possible without an amazing amount of online resources. Some require a free account and most pages are in Latvian (although some are in English).

Here are the main places where you can find digital copies on original documents. Just click on the name:

RADURAKSTI– this is motherload of all Latvian online records. Organized by type of record and by church, city or village. It is pretty easy to navigate and 90% of all my original documents posted on this blog come from here. This site requires you to sign up for a free account.

FamilySearch.com – This also requires a free account to use. This is the genealogy site run by the Mormon Church. There are resources for all over the world including many for Latvia. some of their records from Zalenieku church for the 1820s and 1830s are not on Raduraksti and they were key in unlocking this family history.

CILTSKOKI – this site also require you to sign up for a free account and it is harder to navigate if you don’t know Latvian. The main function in this site is that they have made digitized searchable lists of records on Raduraksti and FamilySearch. It makes searching a lot faster. Some services are paid only.

PERIODIKA – this is the searchable online database for books, maps and periodicals from the Latvian National Archives. I find that this site has a lot of glitches lately but it is still useful for searching old newspapers.

CEMETY – This is an every growing online searchable database of graves in cemeteries around Latvia. Using both visible gravestones and burial records in old church books it lists hundreds of cemeteries and more are going up all the time.

Baltic Maps – I can’t tell you how useful this has been! It shows all current farms/cities/streets around Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania and exactly where they are located. You can search by name or just look around the maps to looks around.

Vesture.Dodies – this site is very useful. On the side are dozens of old maps that you can click on they will overlay the modern map at whatever point you are looking. The map labelled :1920-1940 Latvijas armijas 75K is the one where my farm maps come from in this blog.

TIMENOTE – this is a useful site to look up death notices, obituaries and other information for thousands of Latvians (plus people from other countries too)

Rainis and Aspazija – this is a wonderful part of the Latvian National Library that focuses on Aspazija and her husband, Rainis. There is lots to explore here. I wish I could read Latvian!!