Latvia Emigration and Immigration

Online Records

 * 1878-1960 UK and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960, at Ancestry.com, index and images. ($)
 * 1890-1960 Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 at FindMyPast; index & images ($)
 * 1892-1924 New York Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924 Search results for New Zealand
 * 1946-1971 Free Access: Africa, Asia and Europe, Passenger Lists of Displaced Persons, 1946-1971 Ancestry, free. Index and images. Passenger lists of immigrants leaving Germany and other European ports and airports between 1946-1971. The majority of the immigrants listed in this collection are displaced persons - Holocaust survivors, former concentration camp inmates and Nazi forced laborers, as well as refugees from Central and Eastern European countries and some non-European countries.
 * United States Immigration Online Genealogy Records

Passports

 * 1900 Latvia, Passport and Police Registration Lists, 1900, Fond 51 at Ancestry ($), index.
 * Latvijas iedzīvotāju pases (Passports of Latvian Residents) database During the inter-war period, Latvian citizens were required to register for a passport which served as identification papers.

British Overseas Subjects

 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Births and Baptisms, index and images, ($)
 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Banns and Marriages,, index and images, ($)
 * British Armed Forces and Overseas Deaths and Burials, index and images, ($)

Cultural Groups

 * 1869-1938 Registration of German Nationals at the German Consulate in Riga (Matrikel, 1869-1938), images.
 * 1942-1943 Riga, Latvia, Austrian, Czech, and German Jews, 1942-1943, ($). Index. Incomplete. 800 Jewish forced laborers and was compiled from a notebook found in the Riga ghetto after the war. Many of these people were from Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany. Some of the records contain the name and others have the place of birth or deportation.
 * History of families from Westfalia, Germany, especially those who moved to Prussia, Courland and Livonia. (Geschichte der westphälischen Geschlechter : unter besonderer Berücksichtigung iherer Uebersiedelung nach Preußen, Curland und Liefland), e-book
 * Materials on Baltic German personal and family history from Baltic East, Livonia and Curland archives (Materialen zur baltischen deutschen Personen- und Familienkunde aus baltischen est- liv- und kurlaendischen Archiven) Genealogical records. Alphabetically arranged file cards.
 * Family tables of German-Baltic families (Stammtafeln Deutsch-baltischer Geschlechter)

Offices and Archives to Contact
National Archives of Latvia Šķūņu street 11 Riga, LV-1050

Telephone:+371 20043706 E-mail: lna@arhivi.gov.lv Website Databases Raduraksti: Databases for Genealogical Research

Finding the Town of Origin in Latvia
If you are using emigration/immigration records to find the name of your ancestors' town in Latvia, see Latvia Finding Town of Origin for additional research strategies.

Latvia Emigration and Immigration
"Emigration" means moving out of a country. "Immigration" means moving into a country. Emigration and immigration sources list the names of people leaving (emigrating) or arriving (immigrating) in the country. These sources may be passenger lists, permissions to emigrate, or records of passports issued. The information in these records may include the emigrants’ names, ages, occupations, destinations, and places of origin or birthplaces. Sometimes they also show family groups.

Emigration From Latvia
"Other significant population centers:"
 * The majority of Latvians whom left Latvia in WWII reside in North America (the US and Canada), across Europe mainly in Eastern countries and the former USSR with just as many in Western Europe and Scandinavian nations, and the rest in former Latvian lands in the Baltic states (Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Belarus). The most Russified of the three Baltic states, Latvia struggles with the issue of national identity after one million ethnic Russians and other Russian speaking people settled there since 1940.
 * Knomad Statistics: Emigrants: 342,300. Top destination countries: the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, the United States, Ukraine, Ireland, Germany, Lithuania, Belarus, Norway, Canada.

For Further Reading
There are additional sources listed in the FamilySearch Catalog: