Re: Orain surname
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In reply to:
Orain surname
bill sarring 2/22/05
Nancy, since my reply to you on the other board, I now see your query here.If these people lived in faraway Latvia, I can't imagine what connection they could have possibly had with France.I doubt that anyone here on the France board would know the first thing about people from Latvia!My background includes six years of studying history at the University of Munich in Germany, and I can tell you that France never had a thing to do with Latvia, and I'm sure Orain is not a French name at all.I would suggest that you post your query on the Latvia board.That's where you would have your best chance of somebody who might know something seeing it.And if you post it again, be sure to include just when these people lived.
Kuldiga is the city that was called Goldingen in German and is located in the part of today's Latvia that until 1918 was the Russian province of Courland (in German: Kurland).As you probably know, the peasants were Latvian, the educated merchant and landowning classes German.Riga was a predominantly German city until the latter part of the 19th century.But there were never any French either in Courland or in Livonia (in German: Livland), the other major component of today's Latvia, where Riga was located.
Robert
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Re: Orain surname
bill sarring 2/23/05