Metadata: House registers of Riga City and District
Collection
- Country:
- Latvia
- Holding institution:
- Latvian State Historical Archives
- Holding institution (official language):
- Latvijas Valsts vēstures arhīvs
- Postal address:
- Slokas iela 16, Rīga, LV-1048
- Phone number:
- +371 20 017 505
- Reference number:
- 2942
- Title:
- House registers of Riga City and District
- Title (official language):
- Rīgas pilsētas un apriņķa mājas grāmatas
- Creator/accumulator:
- Police of Riga and Riga District
- Date(s):
- 1854/1955
- Date note:
- Predominantly before 1948
- Language:
- Russian
- Latvian
- Extent:
- 28,015 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- House registers were one of the mandatory documents used in the administrative population registration in cities in the Russian Empire, Latvia and the USSR. During the Tsarist period the house registers were created on the basis of address blanks, which the homeowners had to submit to local police stations when tenants occupied or vacated an apartment. The Riga house registers are a valuable genealogical tool for studying the Jewish population of the city. They enable researchers to study the history of Jewish families, to follow the personal fate of prominent Jewish figures or of many of Riga's Jews during different periods including the Holocaust. The house registers contain the following information: where and when the registered person arrived, the person’s full name, estate, marital status, age, religious affiliation, passport details, the date of departure and where the person was leaving to. The full names of all family members were also indicated. For example, the house register of the famous Jewish historian and public figure Shimon Dubnov, who was murdered in Riga in 1941 during the Holocaust, is part of this collection.
- Archival history:
- Until 1964 the records of the Riga city municipal institutions were kept by the Riga City Archive in the city hall of Riga. In 1964 the Riga City Archive was dissolved and its holdings were consolidated into the Central State Historical Archives of the Latvian SSR. In the Riga City Archive, the reference number of the collection containing the house registers of the Riga City and the district was 343.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- During the reforms of the 1860s, the police system in the Russian Empire was transformed. In particular, a single district police was established, which controlled all the cities, small towns, villages and communities in the territory of a certain district. This system was entrusted with various functions, including administrative supervision in the districts, control and registration of the population. In 1867 an address desk was established within the police department in Riga. It was a special office for the storage of the address blanks and the house registers of people arriving and leaving the city and the district.
- Subject terms:
- Genealogy
- Holocaust
- Vital records
- Finding aids:
- Finding aids are available as part of the digital project Raduraksti of the Latvian State Historical Archives. Some of the records are also available for free online access (registration required).
- Yerusha Network member:
- Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People
- Author of the description:
- Ilya Vovshin, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, 2018
