About

This site gathers the family history of the Leoke and Koik families: the families of Pilvi Laine Leoke (born in Tartu in 1921) and Elmar Heinrich Koik (born at Karksi manor in 1925), who both left Estonia in 1944, came separately to the United States and married in Las Vegas in 1951.

Who made it

The history and this site are compiled by the Koik family. The site was last updated on 21 October 2026. The text of the history is the Ninth edition, October 2026; the site and the printed edition are updated separately.

Corrections and contributions

If you have a correction, a photograph, a family recollection or a document to add, please open an issue on the site’s GitHub page (a free GitHub account is needed). Say which page it concerns and, if you can, where the information comes from.

What is on the site

Its backbone is the text of the family history, also available as a printable PDF. Around it are pages for everyone found in the research, the scans of the records, the photographs, a family tree and a map. The history is the edited account. Each person’s page starts with a short biography taken from the history; the working research notes behind it are folded away below, and show what each record says, including readings that are still uncertain.

Conventions

Dates. Until 1918 Estonia used the Julian (Old Style, O.S.) calendar, 12 days behind the modern calendar in the 19th century and 13 days behind from 1900. Dates from Estonian church books and estate revisions before 1918 are given as written, in Old Style, unless marked otherwise; dates from German, American and later Estonian records are New Style.
Short date labels. The years beside a name follow the family history where it gives them. Otherwise they give the year as written in the record, in Old Style before 1918, so a death on 30 December 1880 O.S. appears as 1880 even though it was already 1881 in the modern calendar. “c.” means about; “before”, “after” and “between” mean the date is known only within those limits.
Names. Names are recorded as each source writes them (Löuk, Louk, Leok, Lõuk; Töllasep; Ranthus), with a standard spelling for headings: Leoke, Tõllasepp, Meomüttel, Koik, Rantsus. Before the 1820s peasants had no surnames and are identified by patronymic and farm: “Jaak, Peet’s son, at Wardja Matzi”.
Places. Places are given with their German and Estonian names the first time: Alt-Woidoma (Vana-Võidu), Fellin (Viljandi), Alt-Karrishof (Vana-Kariste), Dorpat (Tartu), Reval (Tallinn), Gotenhafen (Gdynia).
Evidence. What a record says is kept separate from what is concluded from it. Conclusions are written as conclusions (“probably”, “consistent with”). In the family tree a dashed line means a relationship that is probable but not proven. Ages in estate revisions are often rounded, so years worked out from them are approximate.
Colors. Plum marks the Leoke family and green the Koik family; blue belongs to the site itself, not to either family. Family names are always given in words as well.
Codes. Every record has a permanent code (for example L201 or K05), and every research question an ID (for example LA-01). The codes match the research files.

Privacy

People who may still be living are shown by name and place in the family only. Identity and registration numbers are left out of the web text and blanked in the downloadable PDF. The research does not record living descendants.

Credits

Viljandi Museum: the family photographs and the archive-library items, from the museum’s collections (catalog numbers in the captions) and its permanent displays.
National Archives of Estonia (Saaga): church books, household registers, estate revisions, military papers and exile register cards. Tallinn City Archives: address registers and identity-card books.
Arolsen Archives: Windsheim registration cards, foreigners’ lists, Virve’s death certificate, and Elmar Koik’s refugee and emigration files.
US National Archives: passenger manifests, arrival cards, declarations of intention and the 1950 census. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of NARA: the General W. M. Black at Bremerhaven, 1948. US Navy photograph of the General R. L. Howze.
Estonian National Museum: Tallinn harbor, September 1944 (ERM Fk 3051:5377). kalmistud.ee: grave records.
Photographs of Tallinn, Viljandi and Karksi in October 2026 were taken by the family.
Printed maps: coastlines © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Interactive map: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Typefaces: Source Serif 4 (Adobe, SIL Open Font License), Aino (Brand Estonia), and Source Sans 3 for the en dash. Colors and shapes follow Brand Estonia’s guidelines. Map library: Leaflet.

Each record and photograph page gives what is known of its repository, creator and catalog reference. The archives and museums hold the originals and their rights; please ask them before reusing an image elsewhere.

How to cite

Record pages have a ready-made citation. For other pages, give the page title, “The Leoke and Koik Families, compiled by the Koik family”, the address of the page, and the date you consulted it.

How this site is made

The pages are generated from the family-history text and the research files by a small script, so that the site can be rebuilt whenever the research moves on. The source is kept on GitHub.

Site changes

21 October 2026 · Site content updated to the ninth edition of the history. New visual design; short biographies for the principal people; explanations for key records; research questions with their evidence; working map background; keyboard and phone fixes.
20 October 2026 · First version of the site, built from the eighth edition.