Rahvus Arhiiv, Nooruse 3, Tartu 50411, rahvusarhiiv@ra.ee, Leeni Sepping, Leeni.Sepping@ra.ee
CH-781
Bilthoven, 10 maart 2023
Dear Madam or Sir,
Excuse me for writing in English.
I am looking for the Letter of Arms of my ancestor Andreas Meijer, nobled Meijerfelt. He has received this letter on 24 November 1674 from the Swedish king Charles XI. In Stockholm I found a copper plate with the coat-of arms in the Knights House (Riddarhuset) and a draft of the letter in the National Archives (Riksarkivet). Both institutions do not have the official letter with a colour drawing of the coat-of-arms.
His son Johan August became Baron in 1705 and Count in 1714. From him I finally found the official letters in the Knights House (Riddarhus) in Helsinki, that purchased in 1860 a big collection from a private person. This is the reason why I am trying to find the 1674 letter in other archives. A first archive to look at is yours. Andreas Meijerfelt was for many years (1662-1686) Wrangel’s Inspector-General over the estate of Oberpahlen (Põltsamaa) and travelled several times to Tallinn (Reval). In the recent past you scanned documents for me of court cases and letters related to him.
In “Adelswappen im Estischen Historischen Archiv” I found his coat-of-arms on you website with a reference code. Is there perhaps more to find than this drawing? If not, could you advise me what institution in your country of perhaps Latvia could perhaps help me out?
Thank you in advance,
Hugo von Meijenfeldt
Tartu, 15 maart 2013
Hello!
All main old family history sources of the present-day Estonian territory (as much as have preserved through the wars, fires, etc.) have already been digitised and are available free of charge in the portal called Saaga (www.ra.ee/saaga). There you will also find most of the old genealogical documents of the Baltic-Germans which are being preserved in the National Archives of Estonia (under „HerBalt: Baltic German genealogical sources”: https://www.ra.ee/dgs/explorer.php?tid=332&tbn=1&lev=yes&hash=a4a0af79285fc005bb7e731663d61e1c ).
Please find more information and links in the Estonian version of VAU (since not all articles have been translated into English yet), e.g. about the records concerning Baltic noble families: https://www.ra.ee/vau/index.php/et/page/article/index?menuId=2#article12
There’s also a little information there on what can be fround from Latvian Historical Archives.
The coat-of-arms that you found from “Adelswappen im Estischen Historischen Archiv” is part of a collection of cultural documents (you can see a short overview of this collection in Estonian here: https://www.eha.ee/fondiloend/frames/fond_prop.php?id=3201).
No additional information about the drawing is in this archival fond (description of titles in AIS: https://ais.ra.ee/index.php?module=202&op=4&tyyp=2&otsing_id=20230315093059968702&kokku=16&id=200000322823&f=1&active=&sess_id=15ca24b22ddbfacdb11f218d10f223aa).
As you know there is also the general archival information system AIS (http://ais.ra.ee) which allows to search for references to all records preserved in the National Archives of Estonia and other public archives in Estonia. You can search by different kind of keywords (a person’s name, place name etc., sometimes it is better to use * instead of some letters which may vary) and then you will see titles of the records which contain these keywords and when you click on a record title, you can see which archival fonds does it belong to (i.e. by which institution it was once created) and where is this document being preserved now. You can also see there whether this record has already been digitised – if there is a blue link „Vaata dokumenti” (=View the document”), this is a direct link to the Saaga portal.
Unfortunately the archives cannot offer any extensive research. If you wish to order an extensive research then we would recommend turning to the Estonian Biographical Center (http://www.isik.ee/english/index.html; email: info@isik.ee) that offers various services on the field of genealogical and other kind of archival research in Estonia.
With kind regards
Leeni Sepping
Bilthoven, 25 maart 2023
Dear Leeni,
Thank you very much for your very informative e-mail. Thanks to your hyperlinks I studied the scanned materials, that was partly new to me. Your archives are impressive.
The name Meijer or Meyer is omnipresent, but not the right noble family. It belonged to the low gentry in service of the Livonian Order, and when that came to an end in 1562 they moved to the north to serve for the Swedes. Obviously they have not been registered as Estonian or Livonian nobility.
Best regards,
Hugo