A new online resource promises to aid Latvians searching for ancestors who came to the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The American Family Immigration History Center has made available passenger lists of ships entering the port of New York from 1892 to 1924. In all, more than 22 million immigrants, passengers and crew members came to America during this period.

The records became available April 17 at www.ellisislandrecords.org.

Perhaps hundreds of Latvian immigrants passed through New York on their way to new homes throughout America. Family history researchers wanting to review ship passenger lists previously had to travel to New York to view the original documents. Now searching may be done from a home computer, although the popularity of the site may try one’s patience.

Searching is simple, but at least a couple rules must be kept in mind.

First, during the time period covered by the records, many Latvians would have spelled their names using the old Gothic orthography. Thus, Ozols could very well appear in the records as Ohsols. A search for the surname “Ozols” found three individuals, but “Ohsols” returned nothing. The shorter version “Ozol” returned 18 names, while “Ohsol” yielded eight.

Second, Latvian immigrants who arrived in the years immediatedly following the 1905 Revolution may well have traveled with forged documents or under pseudonyms. For example, just because the family name was Kalniņš back in Latvia doesn’t mean that was the name used by a revolutionary trying to find a temporary home in the United States.

Once a user has completed the free registration with the center, detailed ship records may be viewed. Even these, however, only provide basic information: Nineteen-year-old Juris Ohsol, for example, arrived in New York on Sept. 30, 1922, on the Cunard ship Aquitania, which had set sail from Southampton, England. Additional features include information on the ship and its manifest, so users may learn with whom an ancestor traveled. The online system also allows annotation if users want to add additional information that may be viewed by others.

Search results may be refined, but users searching for Latvian ancestors may face problems here. “Latvian” or “Lettish” are not listed as ethnicities which can be used to tweak results, which is not surprising because for much of the period covered by these records Latvia was a region of the Russian Empire. In additional, “Libau” (Liepāja) is not listed as a port of departure, because for the voyage westward to America many Latvians changed ships at European ports such as Hamburg or Southampton.

Users of these records should keep in mind that they only cover the Ellis Island immigration center and the port of New York. However, immigrants from Latvia also arrived at other ports. For example, among the earliest arrivals in the late 19th century were Jēkabs Zībergs and handful of other Latvians who disembarked at Boston. Others may have first arrived in Canada and only later moved to the United States.

The records were put on line with the help of volunteers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The church has as one of its missions the cataloguing of all people. Others involved in the project are Compaq, FamilyTree Magazine and Hostcentric.

The popularity of the site overwhelmed the history center’s server, according to news reports. Millions of users tried to gain access to the site on its first day of operation. The history center now limits access.

A fish inspector from Rīga became the first person to vote in Latvia’s municipal elections March 11, according to the Rīga City Elections Commission. Ilmārs Pētersons was at a polling place set up at the 3rd Rīga High School on Grēcinieku Street by 8 a.m., earning him the title of “First Voter of the Third Millenium.”

Photo opportunity aside, the man’s apparent eagerness to vote may be an indication of how other disgruntled Latvians reportedly were going to take in municipal elections around the nation. Pre-election predictions said that the Latvian Socialdemocratic Labour Party (LSDSP) and other leftwing parties were sure to sweep up control of eastern Latvia, particularly in rural areas and other communities where voters have grown tired of slow economic reform, corruption and other problems.

These were the third municipal elections in Latvia. Turnout was expected to be high (the last elections, in 1997, saw 56.8 percent of eligible voters cast ballots). By 4 p.m., nearly 50 percent of eligible voters had cast ballots, either in person or by mail. A study last year by the Central Elections Commission found that 58 percent of eligible voters definitely planned to partipate in this year’s election, while another 24.6 percent said they were likely to participate.

Throughout Latvia, hundreds of candidates were running for seats on various local government councils. The election for Jelgava City Council, according to media reports, saw the most competition with more than 200 candidates for 15 seats. In the capital city of Rīga, 17 different parties fielded candidates for 60 seats. Rīga’s incumbent Mayor Andris Ārgalis was expected to be returned to office.

The run-up to the election, as well as the election itself, has not been without some scandal, although the amount of trouble has appeared minimal. A few weeks before the election, Diena reported that an independent television production company preparing material on the campaign had asked up to LVL 200 from mayoral candidates to participate in televized discussions. On election day, according to the LETA news agency, reports of vote-buying were recorded in Rezekne.

The second round of NATO enlargement, with possible invitations to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to join the alliance, is expected to be one of the main issues occupying the minds of Baltic activists in Washington, D.C., during the next couple of years.

But some say more cooperation among the Baltic activists is needed.

Optimism stirred by the May 2000 "Vilnius statement," in which representatives of the nine NATO candidates called for their simultaneous entry, has somewhat dwindled. During a recent press briefing at Radio Free Europe in Washington, the three Baltic ambassadors to the United States agreed on the principle "one is better than none, two is better than one," though they didn’t abandon the possibility of all three neighbors joining NATO together. Ensuring at least a minimum Baltic presence in the next expansion round is what the embassies and the Baltic community activists are working for at this stage.

Baltic-American organizations have been trying for many years to promote Baltic interests in Washington. Although they have established a certain level of cooperation and operate under the umbrella of the Central and East European Coalition (CEEC), some say there is no coordinated strategy to secure the support of the U.S. Congress for the Baltic states’ admission to NATO.

Some community activists feel a need for a more coherent and integrated plan of action in order to achieve the enlargement goals. Except short annual meetings at the Joint Baltic American National Committee (JBANC), there is no event that would bring together all the organizations, Valdis V. Pavlovskis, president of the Baltic American Freedom League, told Latvians Online.

"The coordination could be much much better," he said, but added that "some organizations don’t consider it important to come together." More cooperation among the various groups is needed, with annual conferences that would discuss strategies for several days in a row, said Pavlovskis, who has tried to initiate such meetings.

Ilmārs Dambergs, representative of the American Latvian Association (ALA) at the new CEEC NATO Enlargement Task Force, said there doesn’t seem to be central coordinator that could publish the results of the meetings held among the three embassies, or the nine aspirant countries’ ambassadors, or different Baltic American organizations.

Coordination is sometimes missing on the grassroots level, too. The valuable NATO enlargement support groups in Eastern and Midwestern states, created during last year’s tour by ALA President Jānis Kukainis and the Latvian Embassy’s counselor on congressional affairs, Jānis Eihmanis, are now lacking coordination, Dambergs told Latvians Online.

Still, grassroots work is the best way to get legislators involved in the Baltic issues, everyone agrees. Baltic constituents can be very influential if they contact their representatives in Congress and explain their concerns, said Karl Altau, managing director of JBANC.

Baltic voters can be particularly effective in states with large Baltic populations, such as New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois and California, Altau said. Organizations such as the JBANC and BAFL help to organize grassroots efforts by sending out e-mails, faxes and letters to Baltic voters asking them to contact their congressional representatives.

Also helping in the NATO expansion debate is the Web site ExpandNato.org, sponsored by American Latvian Association and World Federation of Free Latvians. ExpandNato posts all the NATO enlargement-related information on its Web site and sometimes sends out printed news updates. It follows the response from readers and answers their questions. The Web site, which now has an average of 500 hits a day, is planning to run interactive conferences in cooperation with JBANC, according to the site’s editor, Roy Dauburs. The number of visitors has tripled in the past few months, he said.

Although quite small, the Baltic electorate is regarded by many as one of the best organized in terms of ability to exert influence in Congress. "Baltic Americans are ‘rabid,’" Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), co-chair of the House Baltic Caucus, said in a telephone interview.

A fourth-generation Lithuanian-American, Shimkus said the strongest way to enlarge the House Baltic Caucus is for Baltic-Americans to lobby their congressional representatives to join the interest group.

In Congress, the House Baltic Caucus and the Senate Baltic Freedom Caucus are the main channels through which the NATO enlargement and other Baltic interests are championed. Instead of talking to numerous congressmen, Baltic organizations more often contact just the members of the Baltic caucuses, who can then spread the message to other colleagues in Congress, said BAFL’s Pavlovskis. Baltic caucuses educate congressional representatives about the Baltic nations, distribute information and try to get support for Baltic causes. The House caucus had 69 members and the Senate caucus 7 members in the 106th Congress.

Baltic caucuses are likely to play a big role in securing Balts a strong voice during NATO expansion debates.

"The challenge of the Baltic Caucus is to make sure that the Baltic states are up-front in the enlargement process," Shimkus said. This year, Baltic organizations will use the help of Baltic caucuses to promote NATO-related legislative initiatives as well as the ongoing U.S. foreign aid and funding programs: Support for East European Democracies (SEED), Foreign Military (FMF) Funding and its subordinate, the International Military and Education program (IMET).

Though Baltic-American organizations enjoy good relations with the Baltic embassies, a result of which is frequent exchange of information and consultations, the local activists don’t want to be viewed as lobbyists for the Baltic states. "We’re lobbying for the interests of the United States," said JBANC’s Altau. "Our main idea is that the enlargement of NATO would be important for the U.S. security interests."

When the NATO debate approaches, Balts can hope for quid pro quo support of other Central and East European-American groups. The second enlargement road is a sequence in the process, which started some years ago and brought Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland into NATO, said Altau. JBANC testified at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings, lending its support to the first countries to join, and now groups such as the Polish American Congress are very supportive, he added.

Enthusiastic support is seen from Poles and Hungarians as well as Czechs, agreed Dambergs of the CEEC NATO Enlargement Task Force. These groups are active members of the task force, which plans a major campaign to support NATO enlargement. The campaign will start with a series of letters to the U.S. president, vice president, state and defense departments, Senate, House and the National Security Council. The letters are to state the objectives of NATO aspirants and asking for meetings with officials, according to Dambergs. The working group, which among others includes also Balts, Romanians, Slovaks and Bulgarians, plans to concurrently assess the potential support from constituents in areas with Central and East European ethnic concentration, Dambergs said. It also plans to identify allies and friends among labor unions, veterans groups, NATO committees, think tanks and media—and enlist their support.

Baltic diplomats and local organizations don’t have to start anew in Congress and the Bush Administration. They stress long-time relationships and a lasting support that won’t vanish with the change of cabinet and legislators. And in terms of NATO enlargement, there is not much difference between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush’s administrations. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell stressed in his confirmation hearings that, although the administration would listen to Russia’s objections to the inclusion of the Baltic states in NATO, Russia’s protests shouldn’t determine the enlargement decisions.

"America is not a country who cleans the desk and starts from the beginning (after the elections)," said Stasys Sakalauskas, Lithuania’s ambassador to the United States. "You have the policies, you have the Baltic charter (the Charter of Partnership among the United States of America and Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania), you have all the middle-level officials who have been working for some time on the Baltic issues…We have developed good relations with some Republicans, now they’re going to take higher and lower posts. They will be there, so we won’t talk to people we don’t know."

As for supporters of Balts, Sakalauskas wouldn’t call it a "lobby," but "friends, people who really understand our aspirations." According to the Lithuanian ambassador, "The Baltic case is really clean and clear: We are freedom-loving nations who were deprived of it for 50 years. Therefore, it’s much easier to bring our case to the administration, to Congress, to activist groups. We have a lot of support."