Patrick Munits will be presenting and the program will include:

• Immigration and Naturalization records in Latvia from the interwar period
• Recent developments with regards to accessibility of documents stored in Latvian archives for the years between WWI and WWII.
• Overview of period passports, and other types of documents from Latvia and nearby countries that can be found in the archive and are now accessible on the web.
• Presentation of techniques to identify and confirm possible missing relatives.

Patrick is a first-generation immigrant. He was born in Riga, Latvia during the Soviet period and for a few decades was the only kid in town with such a name. Patrick researches his Ashkenazi and Latvian ancestors. Much of his family information was lost and obscured during the Holocaust and Stalin’s purges. Over the recent years Patrick was able to uncover many facts previously unknown to his family, all thanks to newly-accessible archives on the Internet. Patrick finds joy whenever he is able to use his native Russian speaking ability together with his professional IT skills to link records from Eastern Europe to immigrant families in North America and elsewhere.