I am not a professional Aspazija researcher, nor am I very familiar with her writings since most of them have not been translated into English. I am not Latvian and unfortunately, I do not read or speak Latvian. I am an American/Australian who married a man who has Latvian ancestry. I come from a long line of family historians and have been researching my own family history for many years. In 2014, my father-in-law asked if I would be interested in looking into the background of his deceased Latvian father. The only information we had about him was a few vague family stories, a handful of old damaged photos and some diaries written in Latvian. But it was a starting point. My father-in-law’s father was Zanis ‘John’ Zekants.
Zanis ‘John’ Zekants was the only child of Zanis Zekants and Lizette Emilija Rozenwalds/Rozentals. He was orphaned at the age of two and was raised by his maternal aunt, Olga Rozenvalds/Rozentals, and his maternal grandparents, Kristaps Rozentals/Rozenvalds & Anna Smiltnieks. This Rozenvalds/Rozentals family was from the Zalenieku-Jekabnieku area near Jelgava. I was researching this family when I made contact with a cousin of my father-in-law’s who had emigrated to the United States after WWII. He was a great source of information about our family. His name is Paulis Kalnins.
Paulis Kalnins is the son of Elza Vimba and Valdis Kalnins. Elza Vimba was the only biological child of Lawize Rozentals/Rozenbergs. Lawize was the only sister of Kristaps Rozentals/Rozenvalds (see previous paragraph). One of the family documents that Paulis shared with me was a small white pamphlet from St. Martin’s Lutheran Church in Riga. Paul’s mother, Elza, had written on that paper that her mother, Lavize, was a cousin of Aspazija. I had no idea who Aspazija was and Paulis said she was a famous Latvian writer from the early 20th century.
I started researching Aspazija and finding out about her. It didn’t take long to realize that she was also from the Zalenieku area and that she also had an interesting dual name: ‘Rozenvalds’ and ‘Rozenbergs’. It was also clear that almost nothing was known about Aspazija’s father’s family. There was no one who could help or give me any information on the Rozenvalds/Rozenbergs line. But this was the family I needed to know about to connect to ours! It took a couple more years of research before I came across the true relationship between our family and hers.
Aspazija’s parents were Dāvis Rozenwalds/Rozenbergs and Grieta Freimane. A marriage record has not been located but they must have been married in 1859 or 1860 (the marriage records for those years at Zalenieku church no longer exist). Aspazija was born Johanna Emilija Lizete Rozenvalds in 1865. However, she was known by the name ‘Elza Rozenberga’ for most of her life, Aspazija being a pen-name. Aspazija was the eldest of 4 children and they were all born on a farm called ‘Daukšu’ in Zalenieku.
Her father, Dāvis, was the manager of this farm by 1857. The previous owners of Daukšu farm were David and Grieta Vigants. The Vigants did not have children of their own. But it is well-known that they entrusted the farm to Dāvis Rozenvalds/Rozenbergs. There has been a lot of speculation about the relationship between the Vigants and Aspazija’s father. An adult adoption? An illegitimate birth? A sham relationship for economic purposes? Through my research I have discovered that Grieta Vigants was a biological maternal aunt of Dāvis Rozenvalds/Rozenbergs.
Aspazija’s father, Dāvis Rozenvalds/Rozenbergs, was born in April 1832 and baptized in Zalenieku Lutheran church. His father was named Geddert and his mother was named Anne. Geddert was born in 1808 and Anne was born in 1805. At the time of Geddert and Anne’s marriage in 1830, Geddert was living at Blekku Samela farm and Anne was living at Daukšu. These farms are right next to each other. After getting married they moved back to the farm of Geddert’s birth, Rentshu Jahna in Jekabnieku. This is where Dāvis was born in 1832. Sadly, Dāvis’s mother Anne died just after his birth from childbirth complications. Several months later, Geddert remarried a woman named Trine. Trine happened to be Anne’s sister. Trine was now the step-mother to her new-born nephew.
Anne and Trine were both daughters of a couple named Klawe and Trine. Klawe and Trine were the managers of a farm called Kaulinu Bascha. Klawe and Trine had 8 children. Lawize was their eldest who married and took the name ‘Gulbis’. Their daughter, Grieta, married and took the name ‘Vigants’. Anne married Geddert but died before surnames. Trine also married Geddert and later took the name Rozentals and Rozenbergs. The two sons of Klawe and Trine (Kristaps and Ans) took the surname ‘Budien’. I have traced their marriages, children, residences and deaths through public online records to the best of my ability for at least 2 generations.
Klawe died in 1825 and his eldest daughter, Lawize, and her husband, Indriks Gulbis, took over management of Kaulinu Bascha farm. For some unknown reason in 1829 some of these family members moved quite a distance over to Daukšu farm. Klawe and Trine’s daughter, Grieta, and her husband Dave Vigants became the managers at Daukšu. Lawize and Indriks Gulbis gave up managing Kaulinu Bascha and also moved over to Daukšu farm. Many members of the Budien/Gulbis/Rozenwalds family come in and out of Daukšu farm for decades to come. Other members continue to be managers of Kaulinu Bascha for many years.
I think that when Dave and Grieta Vigants wanted to find someone to take over Daukšu farm when they died, they didn’t have too many males of an appropriate age to choose from. They had no children of their own and their nephew, Dāvis Rozenwalds, was now an adult. In 1850, Dāvis moved from wherever he was living in Jekabnieku to Daukšu farm. Dave Vigants died in 1854 and by 1857 Dāvis Rozenwalds is the manager of the farm.
