The Latvian State Historical Archives keep unique documents which are extremely important in researching the history of our country in general as well as the history of some separate family. The main goal of the Archives is to ensure preservation of the original documents and make them accessible for any resercher.
The interest of archival clients about their roots and family history is growing conciderable. Researching the family history church books, censuses, revison lists, statistic and personal documents are used. A part of these documents is digitalized and jakest are made to read them. The digitalizing of another part of documents still continues and meantime the original files are used in the reading room.
The design of the project appeared in 2005 after the National Archives of Estonia created the virtual archives „Saaga” by placing on-line Ev. Lutharen and Orthodox church books and other documents to research the family history. The archives of Lithuania are working on the similar projects.
The main purpose of the Project is:
This Project aimes to create a virtual archival reading room where access to the Ev. Lutheran, Catholic, Ortodox church books, vital records of rabbintas, revision lists of Livland and Courland, materials of the Russia 1895 Census in Courland, Vitebsk and Livland provinces will be enabled.
The digital environment allows to see and to read the document like original documents are seen and red in the reading room.
As result all researchers with respect of their location will have an opportunity to investigate their family history
The Project will be developed in 2007–2010.
In 2007 about 800 000 shots will be digitalized, e.g. all Latvia’s Church Books of Ev. Lutheran Congregation and a part of Church Books of Latvia’s Catholic Congregation. They will be placed on the Raduraksti web site.
In 2008 digitalizing of all church book will be finished and the work on the digitalizing of revision lists and Materials of the Russia 1895 Census in Courland, Vitebsk and Livland provinces and placing them on the web site starts.
Birth and baptism registes
contain the following information:
Engagement, banns and marriage registers
contain the following information:
Marriage chronological regsiters (only for Ev. Lutheran congregation) show names and surnames of groom and bride, date of marriage, in some cases – place of residence;
Death registers
contain the following information:
name and surname of the deseased person, place of birth, age, family status date and place of death, cause of death, date of funeral (in some cases also the place);
The death records of the Catholic congregation contain in some cases information about the widow / widower and children.
Registers of confirmands (only for Ev. Lutheran congregation) contain the following information:name and surname of the confirmed person, birth date and place, date of confirmation, parents’ names and surnames, social status and occupation, notes about the knowledge of religion.
Archives keep birth, marriage and death records only until 1905. The records for 1906–1921 are kept in the Registry Office Archives of the Ministry of Justice in Rīgā, Kaļķu ielā 24. Records after 1921 are kept in the districts’ Regsitry Offices according to the place of birth, marriage and death.
Revision lists of 18th–19th centuriesThere are revision lists of 1782, 1795, 1811, 1816, 1826, 1834, 1850 and 1858. The most complete are revision lists of Livland’s estates, very pure are lists of Latgale revisions. The following information can be found in these documents:Names of family members, family composition, age at the time of the revision, social status (servants, farmers), previous place of residence, belonging to the certain tax payers group and whether subjected to the military service (recruits). Each family has its own number which helps to understand whether persons with the same family name are related. Every year the list of persons who came to the eatste or left it were compiled showing when and from where the person came or where gone. Peasants with surnames in Livland were stated the first time in the revision of 1826.
All-Russian Census documents –– lists of inhabitants of Livland, Courland and Latgale set up on January 28, 1897. They show persons’ names and surnames, patronimics, gender, age, family and social status, birth place and place of origin, address, faith, mother tongue, whether is literate, occupation, relationship to the persons which live together. These lists have survoved not completely.
The virtual archives consist of digitalized documents of the archival funds. Information about the funds’ content can be found in the database of the Central Register of National Archival Fund http://www.arhivi.gov.lv
Vital records of all confessions can be found in the following archival collections:
as well as in separate congregation funds
Revisoin documents can be found in the funds
All-Russian census documents are kept in the fund
2706 Materials of the Russia 1895 Census in Courland, Vitebsk and Livland provinces.
Every archival file is digitalized as a separate file and the title page shows: fund name, fund number, inventory number, file number, dates of the document and number of pages.
All files are arranged by parish names.