Riga Address Books: Locating Your Ancestors in Riga

The 1810 Riga address book (on the left) is the earliest that I found and the 1930/1931 (on the right) is the most recent.

This week I would like to focus on a resource that I am not sure many people know about, but that I have found quite helpful over the years. These are the Riga Address Books. These books are very similar to modern-day phone books. These books are available from 1900 to 1914 and then again from 1924 until 1931. The books were not able to be published during WWI and the Russian Civil War between 1915 and 1920. Several books from throughout the 19^th century are also available. There are at least two different online sites to access these books:

Latvian National Library: Grāmatas

The Internet Archive

I will briefly explain where these sites are, how to find the books, what information can be found in them, what language, orthography and font challenges you will need to tackle and will list some resources at the end of the post.

A Tour of the 1925 Riga Address Book

I will use the 1925 Riga Address Book as an example. The book has a total of 1134 pages. Here is a breakdown of the contents:

• The first 50 pages are business advertisements. This can give an interesting historical context to your research and can be helpful if you are looking for specific businesses.

• The next few pages are photos of important places in Riga.

• The next 63 pages are listings of government institutions.

• The next 120-page section is an important one. It is the street directory. The directory is organized alphabetically by ‘main’ street. For example, I find on page 186 an entry for ‘Karlīnes iela’. Then under that street heading are all the cross-streets. That is where you look for a specific building; odd numbers listed first and then even numbers. I look for building 7/9. I can see it there in the block between Maiznicas iela and Annas iela. I can see that the owner is named ‘Grigori’ (which has come in very handy in my recent research!). The numbers refer to police districts, plot numbers and mortgage numbers.

• The most relevant information for most people will be the alphabetical list of individuals on the next 650 pages. Names are arranged alphabetically by last name with guide words at the top so you can see the first and last entry on each page. This makes searching easy, like a dictionary. Here is a detail of the page from the 1925 Riga Address Book that shows the entry for “Rozentāl-Rozenvald”. This is Olga Rozentals, my husband’s great-great aunt. She was unmarried in 1925, so I searched for her maiden name. She went by both names ‘Rozentals’ and ‘Rozenvalds’ so I searched for both and found that in 1925 she was using a hyphenated version. In addition to her name, it then tells her occupation, ‘šuv’ which is the abbreviation for ‘šuvēja’, which means ‘seamstress’. Then it records her address which was Karlīnes Street, building 7/9 apartment 20.

In the next book, 1926/27, Olga is listed just under ‘Rozenvalds’, and the German abbreviated term is used for seamstress “Schudrn.” In the 1928 book, after her marriage to Andrejs Blezurs, she is not listed anymore, but her husband is listed. I believe that it was normal for just the ‘head-of-household’ to list themselves. I don’t believe it was mandatory to be listed at all and if someone moved around a lot, they may not bother with it. So just because you don’t find someone in the book doesn’t mean they weren’t living in Riga at that time.

• The next 400 pages are businesses and industries, alphabetical by industry. At the end of this section is a simplified list of industries in Latvian, the same list in German and a list of foreign businesses.

• The final 50 or 60 pages are ads, just like at the beginning.

Riga Address Books on the Latvian National Library Site

For address books before WWI you will need to search using the German name for the books “Rigasches Adressbuch”. The library website has the following Riga Address books from before WWI:

1900-1903

1906-1914

For address books after WWI, you will need to search using the Latvian name “Rīgas adresu grāmata”. The Latvian National Library site has the following years:

1924-1925

1928-1931

In addition to these, there are also books from throughout the 19^th century as well as address books from other towns and cities in Latvia. Have fun searching! You never know what you might find.

Riga Address Books on the Internet Archive Website

When searching using the Internet Archive you will also need to use the German name “Rigasches Adressbuch” or the English “Riga Address Books”. They have the following books from this time period:

1901-1902

1904-1905 (Note that the Latvian National Library does not seem to have these years)

1906-1914

1925

1926/27 (use search words “1926 27 Rigasches Adressbuch” and note that the Latvian National Library does not seem to have this book)

There are also Riga address books more easily accessible here from the 19^th century including the following years:

1810, 1861, 1864, 1868, 1877, 1885, 1893, 1898

Handwriting, Spelling and Language

Before WWI, the books are generally in German and use the fancy Blackletter font. First names and occupations are often abbreviated and German forms used. For example, Kristaps might be written ‘Christ.’ or just ‘Ch.’ I have included some resources here for decoding the Gothic script, for looking up modern Latvian street names and their German equivalents and an alphabetical list of common occupations in German. The final resource on the list is a post by Latvian researcher Agnese Lūse about Latvian address books.

German Gothic Font Guide

List of German names for Riga Streets

German Occupations List

Lūse Genealogical Research: Address Books