What Saknes is
Saknes is an online museum that maps Latvian genealogical heritage. Built on the 1935 topographic survey — the last complete record of Latvia before the occupations — it connects the diaspora to the homes their families left behind.
Search by address, surname, or parish. Find the property your family once called home. See who lived there, when, and what happened to them. Add your own family's property, attach names, photographs, and documents — and discover connections you didn't know existed.
Oral history dies with its last speaker. By putting names, photographs, and stories onto the map, Saknes creates a record that will outlast any individual memory — so the next generation has somewhere to start.
Why Saknes exists
Saknes was born from years of personal research. Tracing a family's roots in Latvia means navigating scattered archives — parish books in one place, land registries in another, census fragments in a third, written in Latvian, German, or Russian depending on the century. Place names changed as borders shifted. Properties that existed clearly on old maps had no digital trace at all.
Every conversation with an older relative felt like a race against time. They remembered things — a neighbour's name, the direction the road curved, which family had the mill — but those details lived only in their heads. Saknes was built so that no family has to go through that search alone, and so that what the older generation remembers can be preserved before it's too late.
“I built Saknes so that no one else has to go through what I went through.”— Evija, founder of Saknes
Who we are
Saknes is founded by Evija Apine-Koupa, a Latvian genealogical researcher based in Salaspils, Latvia. Her years of personal research — tracing family roots across archives, overgrown farmsteads, and fading memories — inspired the platform.
We are establishing Saknes as a formal heritage organisation with the goal of partnering with the Latvian National Archives, the National Library of Latvia, and diaspora organisations worldwide.
Contact: info@saknes.org · Salaspils, Latvia
Educators and researchers interested in using Saknes for teaching or academic work are welcome to get in touch.
Search by address or surname. Add your family's property in five minutes.
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