More Photos and Documents

While I was in New York, I also took some time to scan some old photos and make copies of some documents. I'll just post some of them below.

I'd been looking for this one for ages, but couldn't remember where it was that I'd seen it. It is us as kids with Chute's mother, probably from 1983.

Jesse, Nick, Sofija, me, Lacy

This is a photo of Chute's brother, Kazimiras (on far left), after they'd won a soccer championship in Latvia. Chute believes it was the Lithuanian army soccer team, and she explained that they won a trophy, or "trowpy" as she calls it. It was probably in the late 1930s, in the days before basketball really took hold as the national sport.

Kazimiras Kisielius Jr (left)

This is a note from Kazimiras after he was abducted by the Soviets in the early 1940s. It was written on the back of this photo. Chute has translated some of it for me before, but I know it wasn't that precise. As I understand it, it is the last that was ever heard from him. I'm going to need to get Raimundas or Elena to translate it fully for me.

From Kazimiras

When I showed my photos from Vilkaviškis to Chute, I tried to show her ones of things she might recognize. The cathedral was damaged in the War and repaired after independence, so I wasn't sure she'd recognize it. She didn't really, but she pulled out this photo of her in front of it when she was in her 20s. It looks so different, I can't really even be sure it's the same building. She's on the right, and the one in the middle might be her sister Kitty, but I'm not sure who the person on the left is.

Cathedral in Vilkaviškis

This is the Kisielius family, probably in the 1930s. Standing in the back are Kazimiras Jr and Chute. Seated in the front are Sofija/Zose and Kazimiras Sr. On the right is Kitty/Katherine. And on the left is Elle (or Ily?) who, according to Chute, was a cousin.

Kisielius Family

This is from the early 1950s, shortly after they arrived in the US. My dad (in middle) was the first born in the US. My uncle "Mike" (actually Mečys) is on the left, and my uncle "Charlie" (actually Gediminas) is on the right. Charlie was born in Germany in the camps.

Chute and her "three stooges", as she sometimes calls them.

This is later (1960s already?) after they had gotten the farm in East Schodack. I'm not old enough to remember when they had cows, but they were still raising hay when I was a kid.

Chute milking the cows.

I also went through Chute's address book and asked her about all the people listed in the hope that it would spark some memories and possibly give me some more leads. I recorded the conversation, but we didn't get all the way through both books. I took photos of all the pages though. Here is the entry that started my whole genealogy pursuit. The address is almost certainly long outdated.

Mrs "Helen Tracy Louis" or, as I know now,
Helen Valaitis and her husband Louis Tracy

Mike also pulled out some old documents. This is Chute's certificate of naturalization.

Chute's Naturalization

This is an "extract of the marriage record" for Chute and Tevuk, apparently produced in the Wolterdingen displaced persons camp in 1948. It shows that they were married in St. Ludwig's in Munich on 2 September 1945. Note that it shows both her maiden name, Kisieliute, and her first married name, Apanaviciene.

Marriage 1945

I'm not sure yet what this is. I'm going to need to get a German friend to help me understand it. It appears to be a church document regarding Chute's marriage to Tevuk. It shows their marriage date, but it was created in February 1946, 5 and half months after they were married.

Munich 1946

This is another record from the camps. It appears to certify Chute's christening from 1921, and it shows her birthday (15 January). It must have been made from her original copy, but I'm not sure why she doesn't have that. The official copy, I know from going to the archive in Lithuania, has been lost. That makes this really important.

Christening 1921

Deportation Documents

For quite some time now, I've been following an online forum (here) of people searching for the documents that would confirm that our ancestors were deported under the Anglo-Russian Military Convention from Scotland to Russia in 1917.  And also the documents that would confirm that their dependents would be were repatriated to Lithuania in 1920 and 1921.  Recently, I have been in contact with people at the Lanarkshire Family History Society, in the hope that somebody there might have a lead.  They've taken an interest in what I'm doing and have offered to run a story in their newsletter asking if anybody can help.  So I sent them some of the back story on what I know and what I'm looking for.  This is what I sent:

I am from the United States.  I moved to Scotland in 2010 to study for a PhD at the University of Edinburgh.  At the time I had no idea that my Lithuanian ancestors had ever been in Scotland.  Before leaving the US, I visited my elderly Lithuanian grandmother (now 92!) to tell her that I wouldn't see her for a while and that I was moving to Scotland.  She replied, simply, "oh, look for the family when you're there".  I thought she hadn't heard properly or had misunderstood (her English still isn't perfect).  Did she think I was moving to Lithuania? Or (even more humorously) fitting with her inflated sense of Lithuanian greatness, did she think everything east of the Atlantic was Lithuania?!  Just by chance, though, my uncle had overheard and mentioned that my great-grandmother had spoken with a Scottish accent until the day she died. How close I came to never knowing about this significant piece of family history is pretty astonishing. 

It took some time after I got here, but I eventually was able to reconstruct the family tree from the records at the National Archive.  To my surprise, I was able to identify three branches of the tree were still here, with dozens of living descendants!  I have since been in contact with many of them, all of whom were just as surprised as I to learn that they had long lost cousins.  It's been a really warming experience to be welcomed into their homes as they have done over the past year.

My next step has been to set upon trying to figure out why their (or more accurately, my) branch of the tree had gone missing.  My great-grandmother was the eldest of 4 children, and by a significant margin, 10 years.  She had married in 1917 to another member of the Lithuanian emigrant community in Glasgow.  He was of the correct age to have been subject to the Anglo-Russian Military Convention, which was enacted in 1917 and was responsible for the deportation of approximately 1100 Lithuanian-Scottish men to Russia (Lithuania then being part of the Russian Empire).  My great-grandmother's brother was too young to have been affected by the treaty and her father was too old, so that is why they were able to remain, and that is why I have relatives still living here.  After World War One ended, the British government only allowed a fraction of those deported to Russia - only those who were able to "prove loyalty" - to return.  My great-grandfather was not among them.  By 1920, the British government made a decision to cut off support to dependents of the men that had been sent to Russia and denied return.  This meant that hundreds of Lithuanian women and children were made destitute.  The ultimate solution to that issue found by the government was repatriation - they arranged for hundreds of people (including Scottish-born Lithuanian children!!!) to be sent to Lithuania. 

I don't yet have confirmation that my great-grandfather was sent away under the treaty, and I don't yet have confirmation that my great-grandmother and Scottish-born great-uncle were repatriated years later, because I haven't yet located the documents concerned.  I do, however, know that my great-uncle was born in Glasgow exactly 9 months after the first Lithuanian men were sent to Russia, and I know that my grandmother was born in Lithuania exactly 10 months after assistance was cut off to the dependents living in Scotland.  Needless to say, I'm confident that they will be on whatever records I do eventually locate. 

The family lived quite happily in Lithuania for the better part of 20 years, until the lead up to World War Two.  At that point, Lithuania got caught between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.  Both countries used Lithuania (and Lithuanians) as fodder in their hostilities.  If it is even possible to believe, the brutality of the Soviets (at least for non-Jewish Lithuanians) far outstripped that of the Nazis.  My Scottish-born great-uncle, by then part of the Lithuanian military, was deported by the Soviets to Siberia where he, no doubt, perished (my grandmother still gets emotional talking about it).  Anybody who has read "Between Shades of Gray" by Ruta Sepetys (highly recommended!) will have some idea of the horrors experienced by Lithuanians during that period.  The rest of my direct ancestors eventually escaped (of course, or else I wouldn't be here), and made their way to the United States after the War.  Why they didn't return to Scotland at that time, I'm not sure. 

My grandmother talking about her brother

What I (and a small group of others online) are looking for is those documents that would confirm what happened to our ancestors, that is:  i) a list of Lithuanian men deported to Russia in 1917 and ii) a list of Lithuanian women and children repatriated to Lithuania in 1920 and 1921.  If anybody in the Family History Society knows about these documents, or is otherwise interested joining our search, please do have them contact me.

---

One member of the Lanarkshire FHS didn't know about these documents specifically, but he was able to provide some useful input on researching Lithuanians in Scotland more generally.  I paste his message below in case it will be of use to others researching their ancestors:

Hi Bob

You must have a good memory to be able to recall that I had Lithuanian ancestors from all the people you know.

I don't really have much information, Brett probably has more than me, but I do have the name of someone who is very knowledgeable of the Lithuanians in Scotland.

I attended a talk by a John Miller titled "The Lithuanians in Scotland".

This was in 2002 and John would have been in his seventies therefore I recon he would be in his late eighties by now.

He is the author of a book "The Lithuanians in Scotland - A Personal View" by John Millar. He is Scots born of parents who left Lithuania before the Great War to escape persecution and find employment in Scotland. The book is written through a selection of reminiscences from members of the Lithuanian community in Scotland and his own detailed research.

It is published by House of Lochar, Isle of Colonsay, Argyll. PA61 7YR.

The book is available on Amazon but if you type in John Millar Lithuania using Google a number of other sites come up. This is a fascinating read and had a lot of information.

I contacted John myself in 2002, enquiring as to the steps to take in finding more information regarding my Lithuanian roots. His advice was as follows........

1. Alien Landing Certificates:- If Brett's ancestors landed in Scotland at Leith then these certificates are supposedly held in The National Records Offices, Edinburgh. The P.R.O. at Kew also supposedly hold all these records. However, they did not have these records for Leith in Scotland 1900.

He also said that if you know the port of landing for any of your relatives and it is not Leith then you might have more luck therefore write to the Scottish Archives in Edinburgh and the Public Record Offices, Kew. Both John and I drew a blank trying to obtain these certificates, Brett might have better luck.

2. Registration of an Alien, 1914:- Registration was done at the particular local Police Station. The local Station will no longer have the register but it will be lodged with Strathclyde Police Archives at Pitt Street, Glasgow. When I contacted the Archives myself I was told that these records were destroyed.

3. Mining and Miners:- If Brett's ancestors were down the pits then he could contact The Scottish Mining Museum, The Lady Victoria, Newtongrange, giving them as much information as he has.

4. Roots in Lithuania:- If he has documentary evidence showing where his ancestors lived or were born, I have an institution that Brett can contact, writing in English.

As it was in Scotland prior to statutory registration, Lithuanian B.M & Ds were recorded in the church records therefore, it is essential to know where.

Lithuanian State Historical Archives
Gerosios Vilties g. 10,
LT-03134 Vilnius,
Lithuania

Like everywhere they make a charge and when writing enclose 2 International Reply Coupons.

When I wrote to them, 2006, they did some research for me for free but found nothing regarding my ancestors as the information I gave them did not have enough detail.

Bob as I said earlier, Brett may have already explored these avenues I've mentioned above therefore my apologies if not, I hope he is more successful in his quest than I was.

Kind Regards
David

PS. I am looking to see if my ancestors ever applied for British Naturalisation or Citizenship and do not have an address, therefore I wonder if you could ask Brett if he could help me out.