TELEGRAPH & Argus reader MALCOLM BAINES has been in touch trying to trace descendants of a Bradford family who originated from Latvia.

Malcolm, a former T&A delivery boy, is from Eldwick and now lives in Wrexham. He contacted us to say that he has documents relating to Alfreds and Tekla Isaks and is keen to know if any of their relatives are still in Bradford.

Malcolm writes: After I retired from my engineering career I worked as a part-time administrator for a small Wrexham company based in an industrial unit on an old colliery site. When the company relocated to a larger unit on the site an employee found a bag while clearing out some boxes. It would probably have been thrown away if I hadn’t happened to be there. I volunteered to investigate the contents. I had no success, however, making any connection between the previous tenants and the contents of the bag - a package of documents and photographs relating to a family that originated from Latvia. Now I’m trying to find a descendent of this family to whom I can hand over this package.

The ‘original’ Latvian appears to be a man called Alfreds Isaks, there is a note in the package showing he was a World War Two refugee who in 1947 was employed in a sergeants’ and warrant officers’ mess at a British Army base in Austria, from where he apparently travelled to the UK.

I have found out from death records that an Alfreds Isaks died in Bradford in the fourth quarter of 1968 and in the package there is indeed a photograph of a burial headstone for a person called Alfreds Isaks born in Riga on December 12, 1901 who died on September 24, 1968. The headstone clearly shows Bradford as his place of death. I haven’t found anything in the package indicating his occupation.

The documents in the package indicate that Alfreds appears to have had a wife called Tekla and marriage records show that an Alfrids Isaks married a Tekla Cipans in Bradford in June 1952. The possibility exists that this may have been Tekla’s second marriage and there could, therefore, be descendants in the area with the surname Cipans.

I am thinking that after leaving the Army base in Austria in 1947 Alfreds Isaks travelled to the UK and settled in Bradford then married Tekla. There are documents showing that Tekla was a professional cook, employed by Bradford Royal Eye and Ear Hospital and Bradford Royal Infirmary. Interestingly, there is a letter in the package to Tekla from Matron Henderson of the Royal Eye and Ear Hospital and by coincidence my wife Jean, who was a little girl then, was an acquaintance of Matron Henderson, as Jean’s late father was the hospital’s electrical maintenance engineer at that time and probably would have known Tekla! There are also documents that show in later years Tekla had addresses in Wrexham, North Wales, but with the surname spelt Isaacs. So I’m thinking that after Alfreds died in 1968, Tekla perhaps moved to Wrexham. There is nothing in the package to indicate why she moved there.

With regard to the name Cipans, there’s an indication that somebody of that name lived in Bridlington and that other relatives lived in Sheffield. I have tried and failed to make contact with Bradford Latvian Club and have corresponded with the Latvian Consulate in London but they were unable to help.

l Anyone with information on the Isaks or Cipans family can email Malcolm at bainesmalcolm@yahoo/co.uk