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Why was surname juggled around so much?
In the nineteenth century Latvia was officially Russia but the real control was by Germans. Latvians had been serfs for seven centuries. While the Latvian language [along with Lithuanian language and one time they were one language] is said to be the oldest spoken language in the world now the written language is an evolvement that started in the 1800s and was only completed a number of years after independence was proclaimed. The correct name is Latvija but on the independence documents it is Latwija because Germanized Latvian was used at that time. Your great grandfather's name in modern Latvian is: Janis(horizontal line over the a) Sirups{h-line instead of dot over the i) Miezis. I do not know whether or not the hyphen should be. A last name consisting of two names not written together is rare. The order is surprising and I have a humch that originally it may have been only Miezis. While the dictionary says u in sirups I know that I often use a in speaking, the o comes from Russian. It is the international word for syrup.
[1] The h in the S name is because the i in Latvian is the vowel sound not in hit but in heat and Germans do not have a horizontal line over the i, instead use h after the i.
[2] The Latvian ie is a sound other languages cannot duplicate, most often Germans use ee for it in Germanized Latvian.
[3] The consonant sound in zoo is written z in English, z in Latvian but s in German.
[4] Surnames for males in Latvian usually end in is or s.
Germans have no ending or sometimes end in ing (don't know why). Surnames for females in Latvian usually change the is to e. In modern Latvian it is Peteris(h-line over first e) Apinis; Anna Apine; Pauline(h-line over i) Apine or later Mieze.
[5] In modern Latvian it is Krumins{h-line over u, comma under n, small v over s) or Krumina(sometimes for females it is a instead of e at the end}
The government mandated that Latvian peasants get last names, for centuries they had none. It could have been that Karl's father made the choice for the entire family. This occurred most likely in 1827 in Rujiena. The records now if they exist are probably in Riga. The choice was to be a good sounding name of trees, flowers, rivers,...
Very popular surnames are Ozols(oak tree), Ozolins(little oak tree), Liepins(little linden tree), Kalnins(little mountain). I have never heard of Siraps for surname, miezis means barley, apinis means hop(essential ingredient in making of beer and krumins means little bush. Miezis is the least used of the three but it is used. There is a chess grandmaster in Latvia by the name of Normunds Miezis. In checking farmers now in four pagasti of Latvia including two agriculturally rich pagasti I found that two of them did not have any Miezis[Mieze] in their list and those of surrounding pagasti. Nauksenu pagasts had the greatest incidence of Miezis. You may have some distant relatives in Latvia.
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