Baltic Deutsch records
My mother was born in Latvia in 1922, when Latvia was an independent nation (between 1918 and 1939). Her family was Baltic Deutsch, so at the beginning of WW II, Adolph Hitler transported all the Latvian people of German origin to Poland, or other annexed territories of the German Reich.
I would like to know if the civil/church records of the Baltic Deutsch people were removed from Latvia and transported to Germany, or were they left behind, and if so, did the Russian or German war occupation authorities retain or destroy them? If they still exist, are they in a central repository or stored regionally, either under civil or church authority? I believe there would be at least three generations of my ancestors who resided in Lativa from the early 1800's to 1939. I have seen no such records online, so if they do exist, is anyone transcribing them for online research?
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I wish I could help. I have several generations of my family (ethnically German and Polish) who lived in Koenigsberg (now Kaliningrad). All the Germans were expelled during or after the war and I would love to find out what happened to the records.
The only answer I could hazard to your question is that in general, Germans loved keeping paper records, while the Soviets show very little regard for records and were known to destroy them.
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Here is a link to the Latvia Wiki for what records are online. Sure hope it helps. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Latvia_Online_Genealogy_Records
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