Further research

Family experiences and unresolved events

• Pilvi’s schooling: her age and years at Hariduse 2, and the school’s institutional name then; attendance itself is confirmed by her recollections.
• Virve’s grave and death: the Bad Windsheim burial register for 1934–45 and the 1945 burial registers of Steinach and Burgbernheim (all on Archion), the cemetery office for grave 110a, the full Mörlbach death-register entry and police notification, and the Mörlbach parish burial register, which may list other victims of the train attack. Any report by Pastor Dannhaimer, and XIX Tactical Air Command mission records for 26 February 1945, may add detail; whether the book’s “Steinbach” means Steinach should be checked first. Virve’s presence on the train rests on family memory: who first told the story, and from whom, should be recorded.
• The voyage: identification of the family’s ship, with Wartheland, Minden and Hansa among the possibilities to investigate using US immigration files or Arolsen CM/1 forms, and comparison of the related 1987 Meie Elu accounts.
• After the 1933 divorce: where Hilda and the girls lived; when Elmar Oswald moved between Tallinn and Räpina; and whether he and Hilda remarried before 1944 (Tallinn congregation books, civil registers and Räpina residents’ lists).
• America: the immigration files for Pilvi, Elmar Koik and Hilda, whose present custody needs to be checked; Pilvi’s file may explain her Wichita address and change of status. Peter’s naturalization file.

• Hans Leoke the younger (1888–1945): his life after 1930, and how and where he died in 1945, probably in the United States.

• Family recollections: the sisters’ early lives, the Koik household and siblings remaining in Estonia, and how Pilvi and Elmar met.

Genealogy and identification

• Hans’s family: the third child of Jaak and Kaddri; whether the Hans Wardja who died in 1846 was Kaddri’s father; the Vana-Võidu revisions of 1782 and 1795 and the Viljandi baptisms before 1834, which are not available online.
• The Leoke papers: the family papers at the Estonian Literary Museum (EKLA f. 224), which probably include Jaan’s notes on the family.
• Mari’s family: the baptisms of Jaan Tõllasepp (1840) and Kaddri Orrik (1842), Marri Peia’s parents, and the relationship to the Waigo Jahn Tõllaseps.
• Hilda’s family: Kaddri Ruud’s baptism (about 1835) and her death after her move to Tartu in 1898; Ann Meomüttel’s marriage to Jüri Ott (1892) and her death in 1904; the identity of Hugo Paltser, Hilda’s godparent.
• Photographs: whether Hans is among the 1873 schoolmasters; the 1910 family photograph follows the museum’s identifications.
• The Koik line: the deaths of Juhan and Marie, who were living in December 1929, and the children’s marriages (the Karksi household book after 1932, which is not online); what became of Hans (born 1877), the second son of Peeter and Els; the marriage of Marie’s parents, Peter Purtsak and Anno Erg, in 1883; confirmation of Ann Rantsus’s maiden name; whether the Koiks of Uue-Kariste and Holstre were kin; a First World War militia list naming Juhan Koik of Vana-Kariste (EAA.316.1.502, image 66), not yet read; the Karksi land-reform files. Koik households found in the Viljandi books of 1900–1939 came from Suure-Jaani and Pilistvere and are not this family.