For a while, Raduraksti was updating its website, and I was not finding the Church records I used to see for my ancestors in Hirschenhof, Latvia. My ancestors attended the Linden Church in the area:
These appear to be the records:
There should be earlier records. Perhaps they will become available later.
Liepkalnes, Not Linden
I see now that I should have been lookiing at Liepkalnes, not Linden:
That would explain why I was having so much trouble finding people.
Here are some of my ancestors who lived in Latvia:
I see that some death dates are missing. It would be nice to fill some in if I could find them. However, that seems difficult. Perhaps filling in marriages would be easier.
Jacobine Lutke
I see that I don’t have a marriage for my second great-grandmother Jacobine Lutke:
Ancestry has this hint:
Here is the record on the page:
I would say that this looks right. Of course, this is just the summary of the marriage record and not the marriage record itself. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find this record on the Raduraksti website.
Johann Georg Rathfelder Born 1778
I am missing Johann Georg’s marriage record also:
This is a tricky person to research because my memory tells me I had that Johann Georg had another brother by the same name – improbably as it seems:
The other confusing part is that the second Johann Goerg was supposed to have been born 14 years afther the first one. Aslo the Johannes who was supposed the be the son of the first Johann Georg was born in 1819 which would make him of an age that he could have been the son of the second Johann Georg! I would like to find the birth for Johann, but it appears that the records only go back as far as 1824 currently.
Browsing Ancestry Records
I found this interesting record at Ancestry:
I don’t recall seeing this before. This appears to be a personal register for the Rathfelder Family for Saint Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Riga.
From what I can tell, this is a record for the brother of my great-grandfather Heinrich Rathfelder. I have this brother as Georg Gustav Rathfelder:
The above record can at least fill in some family history. I don’t know if the +1918 attached to Heinrich was to mean his death or just his leaving. It appears that Johann Heinrich was named after my great-grandfather. I couldn’t make out the second name for Jakob. There appears to be much other interesting information on the page, but I don’t know what it all means.
A Record for My Great-Grandfather Johann Heinrich Rathfelder
This appears to be a baptismal record:
Sponsors appear to be Gerhard Schwechheimer and a Rathfelder. I see that I can also add this wedding record to my Ancestry file:
I’m having such fun with these records, I’lll look more into Alexander’s siblings.
Johann Phillip Nicolai Rathfelder
This appears to be Nicolai’s Baptismal record:
Again, I take the additional names to be sponsors. However, there appear to be more names than usual. I found this record listed under Marriage Banns:
I think that this is telling me that Philippe Nicolai’s mother-in-law was Wilhemene Rathfelder.
This is my great-aunt Maria Caroline Rathfelder’s baptismal record:
I recognize the last name as Pfief or similar spelling.
Harry Eduard Rathfelder
Here I think I have a mistake and I think I know how it could have happened. Harry is the son of Phillipe Nicolai:
Harry’s Personal Register is interesting:
I don’t understand all the notations. It appears that although he was born in Riga, he was confirmed in Linden. Looks like he married in 1932 and has a swastika near his name. The above record is from the Jesus Church – I assume in Riga.
Erna Auguste’s Baptismal Record
Erna’s great-grandmother was a Fuhrmann. I believe that Ern died young:
I am glad for transcriptions as I would have had trouble finding this record:
Caroline Antonie
It looks like I missed one of her names. Ancestry had her birth year as 1877, but that bumps into Erna’s birth, so I will keep the 1878 that I had. Caroline’s Confirmation Record shows her born in 1878 also:
Johann Jacob Reinhold Rathfelder
I may have too many names here:
I dropped the Reinhold in my family tree.
Robert Ernst
It appears that Robert also died young:
Marie Otilie Hilda
Otilie must have been for her godmother. Marie also died young at 2 month:
Ludwig Artur Wilmar
If I have him right, he would have been my grandfather’s next oldest sibling. I am having trouble finding this person in the Latvian records that Ancestry has. I also cannot remember where I got the original information. I may have to re-evaluate Ludwig. While searching for Johann Heinrich Rathfelder, I finally found him:
The Ludwig name was probably for his sponsor Ludwig Metz.
Leonhard Florentin
Leo was apparently the baby of the family:
He got his name from Leonhard Goldigowsky(?).
My Grandfather, Alexander Siegfried Oscar
For some reason, Alexander’s baptism was at St Paul’s rather than St Peter’s Church in Riga. It looks like Alexander didn’t pick up a name from his sponsor. I see that Alexander’s godmother was Ottilie who was a sponsor for Alexander’s older sister Marie Ottilie HIlda who died young. It also appears that Alexander was born in July not June as I had it previously. Of course, all other records appear to show that Alexander was born in June. I guess I’ll go back to June.
Summary and Conclusions
- I started out trying to use the Raduraksti website to find the records of my Rathfelder ancestors, but found the Ancestry records much easier to use
- The death records were especially easy to use as they are difficult to read and go through without being able to search for records.
- I found that searching in different ways helped. For example, I could only find one of the sons of Johann Heinrich Rathfelder by seaerching for the father
- I found that one of the sons I had for Johann Heinrich Rathfelder was actually the son of his oldest son Nicolai. Nicolai’s son Harry appeared to have a swastika by his name which I am sure would have been common for Germans in the 1930’s.
- Finally, I found out that I was looking at the wrong records at the Radurakski website.