Church Records
Lutheran, Catholic, and Orthodox parish books for baptisms, marriages, burials, confirmations, sponsors, and household clues across Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
What We Research
The record groups that usually unlock a Baltic family line.
Baltic cases rarely resolve through one database or one spelling. We combine ecclesiastical, civil, imperial, Soviet, and diaspora sources so the search does not stall when one archive system runs thin.
Metrical Books
Historic metrical registers and duplicate copies that preserve core family events even when modern civil records are incomplete or dispersed.
Civil Registration
Birth, marriage, and death registrations in municipal and state archive systems, especially for late 19th- and 20th-century Baltic family lines.
Revision Lists
Imperial Russian census revisions and revizskie skazki that help reconstruct households before standard civil registration existed.
Soviet-Era Records
Deportation files, internal passport traces, postwar administrative records, and rehabilitation-era documentation when the normal village trail disappears.
Emigration Records
Passenger manifests, displaced-person registrations, naturalisation files, and US diaspora records that preserve the hometown clue needed to reconnect a Baltic family abroad.
Key Archives
We search where Baltic records actually survived.
Lithuanian State Historical Archives (LVIA)
A core repository for parish books, metrical records, revision-era documentation, and historical civil material tied to Lithuanian family lines.
Latvian State Historical Archives (LVVA)
Essential for older Latvian family research, especially Lutheran records, revision lists, estate files, and prewar administrative documentation.
Estonian National Archives (ERA)
The National Archives of Estonia, including ERA holdings, preserves parish, civil, population, and government records needed for Estonian ancestry research.
Russian Imperial Records for Baltic Provinces
Families from Courland, Livonia, and related imperial jurisdictions may require Russian administrative records, census-style revisions, military papers, and province-level files beyond one modern national archive.
FamilySearch Baltic Collections
Digitized Baltic microfilm and indexed collections often help confirm denomination, parish, or district before archive requests are sent.
Challenges We Solve
The reasons Baltic genealogy often stalls without specialist help.
Records may shift between Russian, German, and Latin depending on the century, confession, and administrative authority.
Soviet deportation trails can continue into Siberian and internal-exile records rather than staying in one Baltic repository.
Post-WWII displaced-person and refugee files often hold the decisive hometown clue when homeland records alone are too fragmented.
The same family may appear under Germanised, Russified, local-language, or occupation-era name variants across multiple regimes.
If you want the DIY archive context first, our Baltic guide explains how church records, deportation files, and postwar diaspora sources fit together.
Read the Baltic genealogy guide →Our 4-Step Process
A Baltic research workflow built around archive logic, not guesswork.
The hardest part is usually proving the correct locality, confession, language, and historical jurisdiction before the record hunt begins. Once that map is right, the search becomes much more efficient.
01
Intake
We review the names, family stories, immigration papers, church records abroad, and US diaspora clues you already have to identify the strongest locality lead.
02
Jurisdiction Mapping
Koreni maps the correct country, archive system, denomination, and imperial context before the search starts, so Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are not treated as one interchangeable region.
03
Archive Search
We target the most relevant Baltic archives, revision-era records, deportation files, and diaspora sources, then reconcile language and surname variants across them.
04
Report
You receive a clear findings report with sourced relationships, translated record details, archive references, and practical next-step recommendations.
Baltic Research FAQ
Questions families ask before starting Baltic genealogy research.
If you want to understand the records landscape before hiring help, our Baltic guide goes deeper on archives, church registers, deportations, and postwar diaspora clues.
Read: Baltic Genealogy Research GuideCan Koreni research Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian ancestors from the same family?
Yes. Many Baltic families moved across imperial and national borders, or had branches that identified with different languages and confessions. We map the line country by country so one surname is not treated as one archive problem.
Do I need the exact village to begin Baltic genealogy research?
The exact village is the strongest starting point, but it is not always required on day one. Passenger manifests, US naturalisation files, displaced-person records, cemetery inscriptions, and ethnic church records abroad often preserve the location clue we need.
Can you help with Soviet deportation and Siberia records?
Yes. For many Baltic families, deportation records are central rather than optional. We treat Siberian exile files, rehabilitation records, and Soviet administrative traces as part of the core family search when the paper trail breaks after the 1940s.
Why do Baltic records use so many different spellings of the same surname?
Because the Baltic region passed through different church, imperial, national, and occupation systems. The same family may appear in German, Russian, Latin, Lithuanian, Latvian, or Estonian forms, so successful research depends on tracking variants instead of expecting one stable spelling.
Start Your Baltic Family Search
Start Your Baltic Family Search
Tell us what you know, even if it is only a surname, a parish name, a deportation story, or a US immigration clue. We will take you to the Koreni contact form and turn that lead into a structured Baltic records search.
Start Your Baltic Family Search