A family history · a Latvian story
New Shores
Shores, banks, and the long way across them — one family's story, and two towns that sent their people out.
Choose a story to begin
Chapter one
The family
The house on the Gauja, and the long way to Grand Rapids
Four generations of one Latvian family: a forester in Riga, a summer home on a river, a canoe in the dark, and a new life in Michigan.
Read the family story →Chapter two
Two towns
Two towns, three families
Liepāja, the port that sent half a million people west, and Riebiņi, the small inland town that lost its people family by family.
Read the two towns →Coming soon
The records
The records database
A searchable collection of Latvian immigrants, built from census, passenger, and resettlement records. Under construction.
Visit the records →
Every story here is marked with its source: family memory, published histories, or the documents behind them.