Ahrens

I went to the LDS family history center in Oakdale today for about 2.5 hours. Things didn't go very smoothly. I arrived about 10 minutes after 6 pm and all of the good machines were taken. As a result, I had to use the old machines. I should take a picture of them. They are far less user-friendly! Then, to make things worse, my camera wasn't working (not that the pictures would be very good with the machine I was using.) I went through two reels of film for St. Martin's church in Riga. I found quite a number of birth records and at least one death record for the Ahrens line of the family tree. I will have to return in two Saturdays to take some good photos of the documents. The reel of film with the deaths for St. Jakobs church in Riga hasn't arrived yet. In that reel I hope find some death records for a Trusinski or two and then in that record a birth location. I have a feeling they are Russian. I am still at a loss as to why they didn't leave Latvia with the rest of the Germans if they so closely identified themselves as "German"...