The Archives

Day 1 at the Archives. It was an interesting day.. Looking through records, looking for a Latvian. Some records were written in Russian, some in German, on Russian forms, by an German.. Hmmmm Do you think much gets lost in translation? I think I am on the right track. But I think it will only count if he served on a Russian ship. The crew lists for ships of other countries will be in the country whose flag, the ship flew. From the sounds of it, there is about a 50/50 chance that he signed up on a Russian ship, at least at the beginning. I was concerned that he may have had to lie about his age when he signed on. Surprisingly, there are lots of records there of kids 6, 7.8. and 9, working on the ships. So age would not have been a factor. There is a series of books of payroll for the sailors. That is interesting, where the time worked is logged, the amount of money owed, the amount of money advanced, and the balance owing. Many sailors left their ship with just pennies (kopecs) in their pockets. Others left with considerable sums. A lot of blank entries too.. Where seamen signed on, and either were lost at sea, or jumped ship in a foreign port, and never got paid... I have to study my Russian alphabet tonight, so that I am better at recognizing Rosenthal, when it is written in the Cyrillic alphabet.. Even in Russian, the name does jump out at you. The good news is that the writing is much better than the monks with thier crayons that we are used to at raduraksti. I can pick out Rosen, but cannot tell when it is written in cursive, if it is Rosenberg, Rosenstein, or Rosenthal. They payroll books are good because they had to sign for their receipt of wages. I am guessing it will take a week to go through the documents that they have dug up. I do have a copy of his signature with me for comparison. The question is, what years should I be looking at. The stack of records, is about 3 feet high, and the books are the size of a small coffee table. I asked them to dig out 1895-1910. I am thinking about doing 1900-1905 first...

Day 2 at the archives may have been a little more productive than Day 1. There are two sets of records.. The Russians love bureaucracy....I have Johann Rosenthal showing up in 1900 in the payroll book. And a Johan Rosenthal showing up in the other "Crew Only" list in 1903. He has had a pay raise, and is now listed as a "sailor". We also have the names of the ships that he served on. We know nothing about them yet. And apparently he comes from Puze, or that could be Puce, or Puces. That is the good news. The Russians would normally keep the recors as "Johann Georgovitch Rosenthal" Which would mean Johann, son of Georg Rosenthal. His records show Johann Trihne Rosenthal which means this guy was probably born out of wedlock and his mother's name is Trihne....

I am beginning to get the feeling that this guy was a bit of a slippery fellow. 1905, in Latvia, (about the time he left) was not a good time. The Latvians were getting the short end of the stick from the Russians. Lativian Nationalism was starting to show up a little bit, and several peaceful demonstrations were staged. The Russians took a very dim view of this and sent in thier commando forces and executed anyone that had anything to do with the demonstrations or even were just accused of having anything to do with them. Immediately following this counter attack by the Russians, huge numbers of Latvians left the country for America. It may be coincidental that Jahn Rosenthal also left at the same time. My guess is that he was somehow involved or could be implicated, and so he left the country to "lay low" for a while. It might also explain why he did ten years in Canada and there is nor record of him with any of the authorities. Dad said he was an avid news hound... That kind of tells us that he was probably somewhat politically astute at the time..

I will dig further on the records tomorrow, to see if I can get any more details, and tonight, I will dig around Puces.

I think I will ask again for the original passports that they dug up for me when I first went to the archives. One of the passport holders did look somewhat like him and was born in 1885. I just wonder if that passport holder disappeared for a 25 year interval 1905-1930? Ah.. the plot thickens...

Day 3 at the Archives
More dusty books and records...I have pretty well written off the last Jan Rosenthal that I found. Nothing about him is fitting the picture nor the stories. The good news is that there is another one. I think we may have a couple of pieces of the puzzle falling into place. Nothing definitive yet... I have a Jans Rosenthal, father's name Geert, showing up in May 1900, as a cook's helper.. It looks like he was on that boat for 2 years. He then signed on to another boat as a sailor in January, 1902. He only served on that boat for three months and then he deserted ship. No details on that. I am guessing that a position aboard any ship would be better than a position aboard a Russian ship! The piece that pulls it all together is that he is from Nogales, which appears to be about 10 miles form Nurnhusen. The time frame fits in with our original find there.. It is sure adding fuel to that fire..... The archivist said she would dig out any info that she has in that parish. I have my fingers crossed. I ordered up a copy of that record.

Getting closer...
Today was a good day at the archives... Some plus, some minus. The bottom line, is I think we found our boy. Lets start with the minus side.. The two Rosenthals that died close together.. They did not drown... Johann Rosenthal died of cramps, whatever that is. But that is what is recorded. Willie Rosenthal died of bone something (Broken bones?). So those were not the uncles that were brought back to Geert Rosenthal's place after drowning while fishing. We may have to move into the Russian records to find them. Now for the plus side.

Starting with the birth record. It shows Geert Rosenthal as a farm hand. This could mean that he was renting land off the manor, or he was literally a farm hand for someone who was renting land, or that he was a farmhand for the manor itself (Nagoles Pils). The record shows that he was from the farm named Sluka, or something like that. Tomorrow will tell as we dig into the government records.

Jahn Rosenthal put Nogales down as his home town in all his sailing records. Yet our birth records have him being born in Nurnhusen (Nurmuizas), ten miles apart. It turns out that Nurmuizas Manor and Nagoles Manor were both owned by the same German family. So moving from one manor to another would not be a big deal whatsoever. Had the manors not been related, it would have proven to be more of an obstacle.

Jahn Rosenthal sailing career started on a ship called Dzimtene. She was built in 1899 in a town called Kaltene, Latvia. This is only about 15 km from Nogales. Coincidentally, Kaltene was also a sub manor of Nogales Manor. So the story of putting some apples in his jacket and walking to town is not far fetched. Although he signed on to the 8 man crew as cook, he also signed on with another boy/man from Nogales who signed on as sailor. His name was Indrikis Krish Reinberg. It is entirely feasible that Indrikus was in Nogales enroute to sail Dziteme on her maiden voyage. He likely ran into Jahn Rosenthal who tagged along and snagged a job as cook. I would guess that from the size of Kaltene, that they were always pressed to find crew to sail the ships they built, off to their owners. He signed on May 13, 1900. Our boy would have just turned 15. Not to mention it would have been quite a nice season for the walk to the coast with spring in the air. The ship was based in Riga, with a Latvian crew. She was a small freighter. Two masts, gaff rigged, about 200 tons, she sailed the Baltic to St. Petersburg, Lipsberg, Copenhagen, Narmouth, and even Plymouth England while he was on board. The ship eventually grounded and sank off Roja in 1906.

Long before the Dziteme sank though, in January of 1902, Jahn parted company in good standing with the ship. He signed on to another Russian (Latvian) ship while he was in Klapeida, Lithuania. This was the Marcus. It also had a Latvian captain and crew. The Marcus was also built in the same boat yard as the Dziteme. The Marcus was a bigger boat. Three masted and about 300 tons. Coincidentaly though, , another young Latvian signed on the day after Jahn Rosenthal did. His name was Alexander Rosensctein. Alexander was from Libagi, approximately 30 km from Nogales. They may not have known each other before they signed onto the Marcus, but they both deserted ship the same day, in Blythe, England. I am guessing that this was the man that Dad mentions Jahn Rosenthal as being almost a twin. In fact, I would hazard a guess that Dad was named after Alexander. They served aboard for four months after signing on at virtually the same time. As they were both rookies aboard the ship, and both from the same area, probably close to the same age, that they struck up a strong friendship. For a Latvian speaking sailor to jump ship in Blythe by himself, would have been a very brave move. For two Latvian speaking sailors to jump ship in Blythe and go on a foreign vessel, sounds to me like two young men looking for adventure. The search down this avenue will have to continue in Blythe. We have the day they jumped ship. That should give us enough information to go into the records there and find out what ship they jumped to. Mikklaus, at the Navigation museum, here in Riga, figured it was most definitely because the foreign ships were paying considerably more money. So that puts our boy in England, which makes Canada just that much closer.

The story of Jahn Rosenthal's good buddy who was almost a twin had me stumped. If he was a childhood freind, and if Jahn never returned home after he went to sea, how did Jahn know that Alexander died in France? I can see that story coming together in that on one of their ports of call in France, Alexander got himself into a bit of trouble and met his demise. I would surmise a guess that it was about that time that Jahn Rosenthal decided to come to Canada.

Port records are incredibly detailed. We should be able to follow him and his exploits on the sea to the point where he arrived in Canada. We may be able to tackle that on the internet, who knows? Without a doubt, the next place to look would be Blythe harbour authorities and archives.

We still have nothing that seals the deal 100%. There is no conjecture in the facts about the sailing career so far on Jahn. And I do not think there is any doubt this Jahn's father's name was Geert and his mother was Lihse.. The translation of the first names to Grandma's French then to English, and then to the Pastor do not raise a lot of heckle with me. The big fly in the ointment is Lihse's maiden name. By the way, the name “Buvekoke” in Latvian means “good hewn wood” or “well milled wood”. “koke” means tree or wood. Back to the story. From the parish records we have not seen any Buvekoke names show up. Not as god parents, marriages, nor deaths. I suspect that young Jahn did not have a lot of Buvekoke relatives around. Judging from the number of Smilges in the area, and that his god parent was a Smilge, I suspect he did have a lot of Smilge relatives. I would not be surprised at all if we go back in the records that some Smilga married a Buvekoke. So for a 32 year old man to remember his mother's maiden name when he has not been home for close to 20 years to remember an obscure relative name is not unreasonable. Nor is it unreasonable for him to assume it is Smilga, as they seemed to be everywhere in his life.

I would hope that in the Blythe records, we find something that has his signature on it. I would consider that to the final nail in the coffin.

By the same token, we should be able to expect to find records in Canada from the Port Authorities or archives concerning men that went missing from a ship while in Canada. I think we should be able to track our boy, via ship records, to our shores, unless the story of him being shipwrecked and floating on a log for three days gives us a stumbling block that we cannot get over. The key will be to try to narrow down the time frame and the ports of call of the ships that he served on.

I ordered up the government records for Nogale. They should be at the archives tomorrow. I will go through them and see if we can figure out which farm he was from. The birth records show him from Skulte farm. But exactly where that is, nobody seems to know. Nogale Manor would have had many farms. Some would have been rented out to Latvian farmers, some would have been farmed by the Manor.

I am going to head up to Nogale and Nurmuiza on Saturday morning. There is a guest house about a kilometer from Nurmuiza. Both Manor's are in private hands these days. Nogale Manor is closed completely to the public, and apparently the owners are assholes. I should be able to get permission to get into Nurmuiza Manor. Considering that is where our Jahn Rosenthal was born, I will get in and shoot off a couple of thousand pics for Dad.. Transportation may be an issue. I do not have an international drivers licence. I will have to figure out how to move around when I get there. In rural Latvia, I am not going to run into many English speaking people. I don't have a lot of time left. I have to be in Warsaw, next Friday. So I think that is the best way to cover the ground up there this weekend. With any luck, I should also be able to come up with a Rosenthal relative.

I did order up copies of the documents, but they are going to be little more than photocopies. I also took pictures of the documents in various light conditions. I don't have a tripod and proper lighting with me, but I did the best I could. They are quite readable, but they are huge files. I am reluctant to reduce them as they have to be enlarged to read the details.

Although I really do think this is our man, I think we should change tactics and have a two prong approach. One would be to continue looking through the coastal parishes until we have something solid. The other approach would be to follow through with the sea records of this Jahn Rosenthal. I think it will do Dad a world of good to know that some sort of contact has been made on this side.