Communities in Latvia in which I have found relatives in the past

Goldingen -Kuldiga
Schrunden -Skrunda
Lemsal -Limbazi
Iwanden -Ivantes
Needern or Nerden -Niedru or Niedre
Wenden -Cesis
Wolmar -Valmiera
Bebberbeck
Riga

I expect to find more. I found a reference to Kaupen and there is one in Germany and one in Eastern Latvia, but the one in eastern Latvia does not make logical sense... Oh, and even more interesting is that there is a community named "Tils" in western Latvia. "Tils" is how Till is spelled in Latvian. Frequently, surnames are a reference to occupation or a region from where a family comes. The third common basis for a family name is that it is the patronymic of the father. For example, if the son is named John and the father is named Karl, the last name for the son is Karlson. I have a number of those in my searches, but only one that can be linked to my tree in any way: Peterson -at it is only by marriage.

More information found

I have found yet another community in which we may have had (past tense, certainly!) relatives. In a death document for a Carl (yes, Carl with a C) Wihgert, it noted the town in which he was born. He was born on 12 December 1814 in Skrunda, then called Schrunden -or something like that. His father was a shoemaker. It is the first instance in which I have found an occupation that was easily read and understood. Also, it gave the mother's maiden name -Jankowski- and where the mother and father came from. In German it is Needern [or Niedru (Nerdern)], and is also somewhere around Kuldiga. FINALLY, another reason the document is particularly interesting is that the death record spells Carl's name Wihgert, like the way our earlier, documented relatives spelled it, yet the birth record is spelled Wiegert. SO, what that means is that if a link can be found from one generation to the next, a slight differnce is spelling doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't related. In fact, it may mean that they are the SAME PERSON! I KNOW I have seen a series of Wiegerts in my research by I didn't record their location/information, as one has to limit their search parameters in some way.

I am still looking for the marriage record of the gentleman who had died in 1885 and then, from that, hope to find the birth record of Heinrich Wihgert. That might give a middle name and help me find siblings, too. I still haven't found the maiden name of Heinrich's wife, Anne, anywhere. Hopefully that is listed in their marriage document...if I can ever find that. WHEW!