My family is of Latvian heritage.
My fathers surname was BRANTS.
My grandfather on my mothers side was VELITIS.
And my grandmother on my mothers side was DABOLS.
I know that they were all born and rasied in the area that today is Latvia, in the Baltics.
That area has been over run by the Russians, Germans,
Poles and many others through the years.
BRANTS, I suspect was German or Dutch, but I do not know for sure. I seem to lean more towards Dutch because of the spelling. There has been no "d" in it as far back as I can tell. Most German's spell it Brandt, or Brandts.
The one that has stumped me is VELITIS.
I have found some emigrants coming from Lithuania and have also stumbled across one from Slovakia, with the spell, VELITS.
The word has a Latin origin, but I have been unable to find what the root is.
And DABOLS was Latvian, I believe, through and through.
If anyone knows of the origin of any of these three names, I would love to hear from you.
Thank you very much.
