Photos from the Cassells

On the left is "Auntie Mary Valaitis" (actually Veronica's mother's aunt and my great-grandfather's sister, Marijona Kisieliute). This is who my grandmother used to refer to as "Mrs. Valaitis". I don't think they'd ever met, but I believe they had contact, probably through Christmas cards. Behind her to the right is "Helen", who I think is Mary's daughter, Helen Tracy. This is the person that my grandmother first told me to look for when she found out I was moving to Scotland. Unfortunately, she has passed away. The elderly woman in the middle is "Gran Kisielius", the matriarch Magde Pausziute / Kisieliene. To her right is Juozas "Joe" Valaitis and Ona Manning (Kisieliute), Veronica's mother.

Marijona, Helen, Magde, Juozas, Ona

I also made some higher resolution scans of photos I posed before. These two are Jonas Kisielius and his wife Magde Pausziute. I think they come from their alien register passbooks that Lithuanian immigrants had to carry during World War I. It's a real shame we don't have those documents!

Jonas and Magde

This is a group of steelworkers playing cards. Veronica told me the men used to go out and gamble at one of the slag heaps. She believes one of them is her grandfather Jonas.

Steelworkers

This is a group of miners that I posted before. I still suspect that the one of the left is my great grandfather Kazimieras Kisielius, but I can't be sure. Chute didn't recognize him when I showed her the (low resolution) printout, but she couldn't see very well at the time. I'm not certain when the photo was taken, but that could probably be determined by the equipment the miners have with them. If it's from around the early 1900s, there's a good chance one of them is him.

Miners in Lanarkshire

I also made a much higher resolution (110Mb) copy of Jonas's Imperial Army passbook, a really incredible document. I hope to get some help making a second translation of it from a cousin in Lithuania when I go back there this August. Hopefully, he'll be able to get a little more detail than Veronica originally had.

I've also got a stack of other Kisielius family photos, but I'm not certain who all the people in them are yet. Once I get Veronica and Helen (Peat not Tracy) to fill in the blanks, I'll post them here.

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

Kisielius Photos

I received a letter from Ronnie the other day with copies of some really great photos! Of them, this one really caught my attention.

Scottish Miners

One of them could quite possibly be my great-grandfather Kazimiras. I'm not certain how old the photo is, or if it is old enough to be from when Kazimiras was still in Scotland (pre-1917), but Ronnie didn't think it was her grandfather Jonas because he was a steelworker, not a miner. I see a resemblance to the guy all the way to the left, but it might just be wishful thinking. I will need to ask Chute when I'm back there next week. Hopefully she will be able to identify him. He was her father so she would know his face, of course, but her vision isn't the best, so I'm not certain she'll be able to see the detail.

Some of the other photos are very interesting too:

Jonas and Magde
(Ronnie's grandparents, Kazimiras' aunt and uncle)

This is the "Mrs Valaitis" that Chute has spoken of
before, with Ronnie's mother Ona.

The other thing Ronnie sent was a photocopy of her grandfather Jonas's Russian army passbook. It has some English translations, but I will need to get some help translating the rest. It is from a time before WWI, not from when the Lithuanians in Scotland were deported under the Anglo-Russian Military Convention. Jonas would have been old enough to be exempt by then.

Jonas's name in Russian was apparently "Ivan Peter Kisiel"
He enlisted in 1889 and served until 1904.

This page shows that he had checked in at the Imperial Russian Consulate
in Glasgow in June 1916. I wonder if this is a sign of the preparations being
made for the Anglo-Russian Military Convention that went into force the
next year.

I found the passbook particularly interesting because, had my great-grandfather had such documentation when he was deported, it would have been his ticket back to Scotland after the War.* After the Lithuanian immigrants were sent from Scotland to Russia, they weren't allowed to come back if they couldn't "prove loyalty". Some had been involved with the Red Army at the start of the Bolshevik Revolution. If they couldn't produce a White Army passbook, they were suspect.

Digital copies of the photos and passbook are here:

• https://www.dropbox.com/s/5h7ehrdtexjbfjr/from_ronnie_1.pdf?dl=1
• https://www.dropbox.com/s/jdhjlvuu3ffcqq4/from_ronnie_2.pdf?dl=1

* I should note that I don't yet have confirmation that Kazimiras was, in fact, deported under the 1917 Convention. But I am confident that he was.

An Old Photo

This is Chute (Marija Kisieliute/Matuliene), about 70 years ago, taken in Kaunas. She would have been about 22 at the time.