Lithuanian Records

A few months back I came across a Facebook page created by a guy that has been digitizing the vital records for a few towns in Lithuania.  Vilkaviškis, where Chute and Kitty were born, is one of them.  Since Chute has told me that her grandparents, Mykolas and Katarina Kisielius, are buried there, I hoped I would find something about them.  At the moment, the records that he has posted on the page are quite limited, but I did find a match for Mykolas!

Photo #65 from the "Vilkaviškis deaths 1922-1938" album.

The image doesn't show the full thing, but he's listed on the 1938 page.  That seems about right, but there's not enough information there to be sure it's really him.  I sent a message to the guy who manages the page asking how I might find more information.  He referred me to the Lithuanian State Historical Archive in Vilnius.  Out of the blue today, though, he sent me a message with quite a few more details!  He apparently had a look when he was there.  This is what he told me:

Mykolas Kisielius (1861 - 1938 Feb 26)
father - Petras Kisielius
mother - Ona Mikulyte
wife - Katarina Arminaite

children -
Jonas Kisielius (abt 1887)
Andriejus Kisielius (abt 1889)
Marijona Kisieliute (abt 1891)
Kazimieras Kisielius (abt 1893)
Jonas Kisielius (abt 1901)

I always like to see the documents myself rather than take somebody's word for it, but it would have cost him money to take images of it, so I'll have to wait until I go there myself to get copies.  I'm confident he's found the right ones though, because he's come up with information I know to be correct without me mentioning it:  I know from Chute that Mykolas was married to Katarina, I know Kazimiras is my great-grandfather, and I know Marijona is a sister of his from the Scottish records.

What he's told me is really exciting!  Now I know two of my 3x-great-grandparents on the Lithuanian side!  I really didn't expect to get beyond the generation that Chute remembers.  I just assumed most of the Lithuanian records would have been incomplete or lost, given the tumultuous history.  Now that I know some records exist, I'm hopeful I'll find even more.

The other thing that's really great is that I now have some documentation of Kazimiras's siblings.  Jimmy and Kitty were unclear about how many there were (5 brothers and a sister? 5 siblings total?), but it now looks like 5 total.  He's listed the name "Jonas" twice, but I wonder if he meant to write "Jouzas" for one.  I'll need to ask, or otherwise wait until I can get the record myself.  He's used a different spelling for Kazimiras (with an 'e') too, which I think is actually the correct way of writing it.

My next step will be to see if there's records of any of those Kisielius brothers in the Scottish records.  Kitty's story was that the brothers worked in the Scottish mines and saved money to bring their sister here.  I have records of Marijona being here, so presumably there will be some trace of the brothers too.

What a breakthrough!