I read somewhere that the tradition of a ‘Last name’ or surname did not exist in latvia for latvian serfs (the largest portion of the population), and that latvians that descended from serfs (basically slaves) got their last names in a ‘naming ceremony’ shortly after being emancipated (freed) from servitude.

The dates for emancipation in the various regions in latvia vary, Latgale being the last around 1861.

My question is that, having traced my grandfather’s grandfather as Indrikis Vanags, a serf of a german baron, is that it? is there any way to trace my genealogy further back? or does it stop there and further back there are only personal names and no last names?

Thanks

Sveiks/Greetings, Andrej V!

The short answer:  if the first ancestor who received the Vanags’ surname in your family was the son of a ‘saimnieks’ – a farm host, who was in charge of the operation of the farmstead – then, if enough church and secular records have survived, it may be possible to create a family tree going back into the 18th century.  This is possible because frequently, but certainly not always, a saimnieks’/farm host’s family maintained control of the same farm for generations – or at least tried to.  If your ancestors came from the Kurzeme and Zemgale provinces (Courland in English), then it might be able to construct a tree going back to 1710/1711 – assuming that they weren’t among the many immigrants that came into this Latvian territory later in the 18th century after it was depopulated by the Northern War and the Black Plague.  If your ancestors originated in the Vidzeme (Livonia) province, which has a greater number of older church books intact that weren’t destroyed during WWII, at least theoretically it may be possible to trace some lines even further back into the 17th century when the province was under Swedish rule.  I don’t know the status of the Latgallian records, since many – perhaps the majority – are in the archives of Minsk, Belarus.

By the way, the name-giving process itself had considerable variations.  At least according to pre-WWII history books, in Vidzeme (Livonia) it was relatively quickly completed (by the mid 1820’s) soon after the emancipation of serfs in 1819.  However, there are documented cases where completely unrelated people received the name of the Vidzeme farmhouse they lived in as a surname, and I can easily imagine that this could complicate further research.  In Kurzeme and Zemgale (Courland), though serfs were freed in 1817, the law of these provinces mandated that the name-giving procedure be dragged out over the course of years (8, if I’m not mistaken), and actually wasn’t completed until 1835.  Moreover, adult brothers were allowed to choose their own surnames, which could differ from their still-living father’s, and since their relationships aren’t necessarily recorded, this also can make further research problematic.  Then, too, in the latter half of the 19th century former serfs could – and did! – opt to change their surnames.  Once again, if a record doesn’t surface indicating the change, the trail might stop dead.  Putting it mildly, Latvian genealogy research has quite a number of challenges.

There may be some useful information for you about on-line research possibilities in the following thread: http://latviansonline.com/index.php/forum/viewthread/32950/

Last but not least: welcome to LOL! : ) It’s great to see a new participant, and I personally have found your posts quite interesting.

Visu labu,

Elizabete

Some more things to make your search more difficult -

The baron could have assigned your forbearers 1) his own last name 2) a last name describing you or your situation (you live near the birches - we’ll call you Berzins!) or 3) a non-latvian last name - lots of german last names here, or as one baron did- he assigned Shakespearean names to the latvians.

Then there was the era when people wanted to “latvianize” their names (I don’t know the dates) so some of the Rosenbergi might have changed to Rozkalni, etc.

Sveiki!

“Then there was the era when people wanted to “latvianize” their names (I don’t know the dates) so some of the Rosenbergi might have changed to Rozkalni, etc. “

Ilze, this was during Ulmanis’ dictatorship (1934-1940).  My late mother’s recollection was that it occurred widescale in the late 1930’s in conjunction with the language laws (which is when my family took advantage of the fashion and changed the name of one of their country properties from “Pautiņi” to “Iecavas,” though this wasn’t latvianization per se).  However, over the years other LOL participants especially from Abrene have mentioned that ‘latvianization’ occurred there much earlier, not long after Ulmanis brought democracy to an end.  It made me wonder to what extent those living in the border lands were attempting to prove their loyalty to the new regime, and to what extent this was necessary, whether it had any effect on their subsequent lives, etc..

Visu labu,

Elizabete