So have you found his naturalisation records, as if he changed his name then that is a likely time he did it and both his names would be on it.

When he purchased the ticket to migrate, he would have had to use his ID so his surname would have been the same on his passenger ticket as his ID, that would have been used on his processing paper work at the port of arrival as all this paperwork had to match and the processing agents in the USA would have been native language speakers of his own country, so names were not "changed" because of language barriers.

Also how do you know he was "from" Latvia, what records do you have which tells you this as many also embarked from countries other than their own

Just some things to consider and search for before you go into guess work and surname hunting

What do mugshots have to do with genealogy?

There are some available online of Victorian criminals, but you usually have to pay to join those sites.
Can you be more specific?

Makaila, families in European countries or people originating from Europeans do not have a coat of arms. An exception is Poland where they belong to dynastic families. Coats of arms are granted or assumed by individuals not families. They have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with surnames. A good way to tell that a coat of arms was purchased from a surname product peddler is it will have a surname on a scroll underneath and sometimes over it. Coats of arms that have been validly granted or assumed will not have a surname attached. In some continental European countries men have been allowed to assume a coat of arms.

Here are some helpful links. If this is a school assignment, please feel free to print off what I have posted here as well as the links and give to your teacher.

http://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/resour... The College of Arms registers all coats of arms granted by the king or queen of the U.K. for persons in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

http://www.lyon-court.com/lordlyon/216.1... The Lord Lyon of Scotland grants coats of arms for Scotland. Scotland is tough. A person can have criminal charges filed against them for using a coat of arms without documented proof they are entitled to it.

http://www.nli.ie/en/heraldry-introducti... The Chief Herald of Ireland grants coats of arms for the Republic of Ireland.

Now, both the Irish and the Scots have clan badges. If a person belongs to a Scottish clan they can wear the crest portion of their chief's coat of arms enclosed is a belt. The Irish can wear the shield portion of their chief's coat of arms enclosed is a belt

http://www.regalis.com/onom.htm This is regarding Italian heraldy.

These are a few countries I have found. The surname product business is a great big scam. Don't do as Ralph suggested as you will get something that really isn't yours at all. If he got his that way and it is a valid coat of arms it doesn't belong to him.

When surnames were assigned or taken in Europe during the last millennium it wasn't impossible for legitimate sons of the same man to wind up with a different surname and still each could have shared his with others with no known relationship. The purpose originally was not to identify a man as a member of a family but just to better identify him, frequently for taxation purposes. Too many men with the same given name in the same town or village and they had to have a way of figuring who was who.

When you go into someone's home and see one of those walnut plaques with a coat of arms on it it is okay to smile to yourself. However chances are they really think it belongs to them and it just isn't polite to laugh or make some put down remark to people in their own homes about something like that. I tell you this as I don't know your age and if you did do something like that and your parents found out about is they would probably murder you and then ground you for the rest of the year.

Take care/