Finally Finished

It's finally done! The Lithuanian reverse migration panel for the Scottish Diaspora Tapestry has been finished. It's on display right now in the village of Prestonpans, where the effort was coordinated, and it will go on a world tour beginning this summer.

Lithuanian Scots

My actual contribution to the stitching is minimal (being that I stitched less than one and half names!), but I contributed to the story. And I'm very happy to see some of what my family experienced represented on there.

Tapestry Update

As I mentioned, I was very disappointed to learn last June that the Scottish Diaspora Tapestry did not include the panel to which I contributed parts of my family story. Several months later, though, I learned that it was only delayed, not abandoned, and work was continuing! I was really pleased to get that news. Today I met with one of the other contributors who is doing much of the actual stitching so that I could stitch in my family names, Kisielius and Raulinaitis, myself. I only had a short time, so I didn't actually get to finish (and some of my work was a bit dodgy so might need repaired), but at least I got to put a hand in. I'm looking forward to seeing it complete.

The latest design sketch.

My great-grandfather's side.

My great-grandmother's side.

As far as I got.

Catholic Archive

I paid a visit to the Scottish Catholic Archive today. Finally. It's right here in Edinburgh, but I've never found the time to get there. They have very limited hours during the week and by appointment only.

All records in Scotland after 1855 are kept in a civil register (which is held at Register House at the National Archives of Scotland and digitized on the Scotland's People website). Records before 1855 were only kept by the churches. So if your family was Catholic, the Catholic archive holds pre-1855 records of their baptisms, banns, and burials (equivalent to births, marriages, and deaths), plus some other scattered notes on things. These pre-1855 records have been digitized, however, and are accessible on the Scotland's People website. The Catholic Church also holds records of post-1855 events, but these have not been consolidated at the Catholic archive, meaning that if you want to see them you must travel to the individual church where the event was registered!! This means the Catholic archive isn't much use to the average visitor. I went anyway.

The archivist was able to help me identify the churches and the people I need to contact about information I'm looking for. The main thing I want to see is a marriage record for Marijona Kisieliute my great-grandfather's sister, her first marriage to Konstantinas Adomaviczia in 1914. The civil record shows that one of the witnesses had the name Kisieliene. The first initial of the first name is either U or A. My hope is that the Catholic record will list the full name. This could link me to another of the Kisielius brothers. I've seen others in the records, but haven't been able to document any connection yet. This is probably held at Holy Family church in Mossend. I've emailed the priest requesting a look.

Kisieliene

Another record I'd like to see is Marijona's second marriage to Juozas Valaitis in 1936. Both are listed as widows on the civil document. My hope is that document will list additional information about the death of her previous husband (I imagine some documentation of death would need to be provided). I actually suspect he was not dead. In the poor relief records that I found, I discovered that Konstantinas was with my great-grandfather when he was sent away under the Anglo-Russian Military Convention. I think he couldn't get back here either. Eventually she re-married. This record was originally recorded at St. John's Church in Glasgow, but St. John's was consolidated into Blessed John Duns Scotus, which should have the record books for St. John's.

Konstantinas is in Lithuania

I also asked about the baptism record for Kazimiras Kisielius Jr from 1918. It was registered at St Luke's, but St Luke's no longer exists, and I was told the records should also be held at John Duns Scotus.

I asked about the marriage of Kazimiras Sr and Sofija Raulinaite from 1917, which was registered at St Luke's.

And I asked about the baptism of Sofija, which I don't actually think happened here. Contrary to what Chute told me, and contrary to what she actually seemed to believe, she was born in Vilnius. She must have been very young when she arrived (since she doesn't seem to have remembered it), so there's a chance she could have been born there and baptized here. The Lithuanian record proves she was born there, but the German records show that she claimed to have been born in "Glashof, Britania".

Birth of Sofija Raulinitis, 17 Aug 1901
(microfilm 604-20-289, pg333v-334z, no 757)

She's even got her birth year and birth month wrong!

Poor Relief

I have my first bit of hard evidence that my great-grandfather Kazimiras Kisielius was, in fact, sent away under the Anglo-Russian Military Convention. I've suspected this for some time now, but I haven't been able to find anything documenting it. Over the weekend, I found it in an entry for my great-grandmother in the "poor books" held at the Glasgow City Archive.

D-HEW17/804 (186675)

It states that Kazimiras "went to join the Russian army" on 29 September 1917 and "left her unprovided for", suggesting that is was his choice and that he didn't bother making arrangements for her in advance. Quite the contrary, he was sent away without a choice and with little advance notice.

Another thing in the file is her signature (in her own hand!), which confirms another mystery. She signs her name "Jessie Kisielius", meaning she definitely did use that name, and she had a child out of wedlock at the age of 16!

In her hand.

There's lots more information in the document, but it'll take me some time before I can get it posted here (particularly because the copies are poor and the writing is difficult). I also collected some other documents, including poor relief records for Kazimiras' sister Marijona and three other Kisielius women (who could possibly be wives of brothers). Further to that I made copies of military tribunal records of service exemption hearings. There could be something very interesting in there.

The full record of Sofija's poor relief application is here.

Glasgow City Archive

I contacted the Glasgow City Archive (at the Mitchell Library) about the records they hold about the poor, and I asked about looking into my great-grandmother Sofija ("Sophie", "Zose", "Jessie") Kisielius, who (I suspect) was left destitute when my great-grandfather was deported to Russia under the Anglo-Russian Military Convention. They got back to me very quickly with a match, and I have ordered the books to view on-site this coming Saturday. The archivist was able to search the index and came back with this:

Name	DOB	Birthplace	Year of application	Reference
Yose Kisielius (Raulinavicule)	1898	Lithuania	1917	D-HEW17/804 (186675)

There's a couple more variants to the name. And the birth date is off by a few years, but I've got little doubt it's her. The year of application is precisely when Kazimiras would have been sent way. It's also confirms Lithuania as her birthplace, which I discovered last year, contrary to Chute's memory.

There will be more information when I go to see the actual records. This is what the archivist said:

The poor relief application contains the original petition made by the applicant, a record of the assistance provided as well as a note of any subsequent applications made. It varies from application to application as to how much information is included.

Rollin(itis)

I receive the Scotland's People newsletter periodically, and over the last couple years they've been making announcements of newly released "valuation rolls", which are records of property ownership. I haven't paid them much attention because my Scottish-Lithuanian ancestors were almost certainly not property owners. Little did I know, however, the valuation rolls also list tenants of properties!

I've only done a preliminary search so far, but I've found a few. I've turned up Vincent, William, John, and Antanas Kisielius. I'm not certain if any of them is related, but I suspect they are brothers of Kazimiras Sr. John might actually be their uncle. But detailed family information isn't provided on the rolls, so they probably won't help that much. In fact, they seem to only list the head of household.

At first, I wasn't finding anything when I searched for Raulinitis (and its variants), so I decided to have a look using the address where I know they were located for a time, 178 Rose Street. And I found what I believe to be a match. It lists a "Matthew Rollin, miner". It's got to be Motiejus, my great-great-grandfather - correct address, correct time, similar sounding Anglicized name. Again, it doesn't tell me much about the family, but knowing that they also used "Rollin" could be a real help. That means they went by Raulinitis, Rolwich, Rowland, and Rollin, all of which came from the most probable correct version, Raulinaitis.

Something rather interesting it does show, however, is the amount that it cost in rent per year. In 1915, they were paying 9 pounds 5 shillings. But by 1920 they were paying 11 pounds 5 shillings. More than 21% increase in rent in just 5 years!! Bloodly slumlords! From what I understand, people were living in absolute squalor in that area during that time, and to see how they were being squeezed of what little that had really gets me. At least the 1915 roll lists the proprietor, Mary Archibald of Lenzie, so we can know who was leeching off of those who were doing real work. I'd spit now, for dramatic effect, if weren't for the fact that you'd never know and I'd just have to clean it up in a few minutes.

1915 rent £9, 5s.

1920 rent £11, 5s.

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

She Borns There

When my grandmother first told me that the Kisielius and Raulinitis branches of our family had been in Scotland, I was really surprised. I had never heard that until a few days before I was about to move there. Somewhat taken aback, and uncertain I was understanding her less-than-perfect English, I turned to my uncle and he explained that my great-grandmother had spoken with a Scottish accent until the day she died. To which my grandmother added, "yeah, she borns there".

When I arrived in Scotland, I dug into the records at the family history archive and, sure enough, they had been here. In fact, as I've explained extensively elsewhere on this blog, many of them remained and still live here today. The only thing I wasn't able to confirm, though, was that my great-grandmother was actually "borns" here. There was no record of her birth in the Scottish archive. Her marriage to my great-grandfather was here, and she appears on the 1911 census, but there was nothing else. Contradicting what my grandmother believed, the census showed that she was born in "Russia" (Lithuania was, at the time, occupied by Imperial Russia).

1911 Census
Note that "Raulinitis" had already been changed to "Rolwich".

It appeared that she may have just immigrated at a young age. Perhaps she wasn't even aware that she hadn't actually been born in Scotland. When I was in Lithuania, I decided I'd have a look and see if I could find something. The records there are not indexed, so without knowing some fairly specific information, the odds of finding anything are very very slim. What I did know was that her parents, my 2x-great-grandparents, Motiejus and Eva had been married in "Wilna, Russia", modern day Vilnius, in 1900.

Scottish Birth Record of Annie Raulinitis
(my great-grandmother's younger sister)

I began by searching their marriage. I had to get some help for this since the records from that period were, of course, kept in Russian. No luck. I didn't know which church it was, and Vilnius is not a small place. We looked through all the records twice. The person helping me suggested that they probably weren't from Vilnius because of their names (they are more southern Lithuanian names) and it was possible the marriage was actually elsewhere. Since the Vilnius birth records were on the same microfilm roll, however, we decided to have a quick look through. Incredibly, we found her!!

Birth of Sofija Raulinitis, 17 Aug 1901
(microfilm 604-20-289, pg333v-334z, no 757)

It's all in Russian and I can't read of word of it. But the person helping me translated the following. She was baptized in the Church of All Saints, and born to Motiejus Raulinaitis and "Jeva" (Eva) Gureviciute on 17 August 1901 on Naugarduko Street.

As it turn out, she wasn't borns in Scotland afterall. She borns in Lithuania! She did, however, grow up in Glasgow, and lived there until about 20 years of age, when she returned to the village where my grandmother was born, Vilkaviškis.

The Church of All Saints is on Rudininku Street in Vilnius. We went there to have a look. It's your typical Lithuanian church. I had a look around for the baptismal font, but there wasn't one to be found.

Church of All Saints, Vilnius

Rudninku Gatve

Visu Šventuju Bažnyčia

Church of All Saints

Church of All Saints

News From the Slarks

I've been in contact with Sidney ("Jimmy") and Katherine ("Kitty") Slark, my great aunt and uncle, Chute's sister and brother-in-law.  They live in Manchester, New Hampshire and have for most of their lives since WWII.  The letter I just received had some fantastic information in it, including answers to several of my questions.  The whole thing is available here, but I'll go through it piece by piece below (you can see my original letter here).

Jimmy mentions Kitty's mother's sister Anne - that's Zose's (aka Sophie) sister, who I have recorded as Annie (with an 'i') Raulinitis.  I wrote about here once here.  I could only find limited information about her.  I had been told by Ellen Rolwich that Annie had gone to California, but the only records I could find said that she had actually gone to Scarsdale, NY on the S.S. California.  Now it seems that Ellen was right!  Not only did Annie travel on the S.S. California, she did spend some time in California.

It appears that Kitty filled in the family's name, but I'm unsure if she means that their name was literally "Kohler Plumbing" or that they're actually the Kohlers of Kohler Plumbing.  That would certainly make them wealthy enough to have employed Annie as a maid!  Knowing the family's name should make it easier to track them down in the census records.

I do hope they are able to find the photo album that is mentioned!  It would be incredible to see the old photos.

This tree shows Zose (Chute and Kitty's mother, my great-grandmother) and Annie.  Peter is their brother and the patriarch of Rolwich branch that lives here in Scotland.

What he says here is very interesting.  He says that Kitty's mother (Zose or "Sophie") was called "Jessie Rolwich" (not to be confused with Jessie Doyle Rolwich, who was married to Peter).  I had suspected this was possible previously, but didn't have enough to confirm it.  What it means is that little John Raulinaitis was my great-uncle, the illegitimate son of my great-grandmother.  There's clearly an interesting story there, but as he died in infancy, it will probably never be known in full.

It probably sounds odd that they "believe" that Jessie was here name, but bear in mind that names were rather fluid when crossing between different languages - my grandmother is Marija, but usually goes by Mary, sometimes Marie, and who of course I refer to as Chute, which is short for Machute, which is Lithuanian for "grandma".  Heck, Rolwich is a corrupted version of Raulinitis, which is a misspelling of Raulinaitis.  It'll be a nightmare for the next family historian to come along.

The other really interesting thing was that Zose (I'll continue to call her by that) had contact with Peter when they were in Germany!  I didn't realize that Peter had been in the War - should be able to find some military records.  This would have been when Kazimiras Sr., Zose, and Kitty were in the displaced persons camp after the War in the British Zone of Germany.  Maybe he was even in the same battalion as Jimmy, who was an Englishman enlisted in a Scottish regiment.  That's where he first met Kitty.

Sydney "Jimmy" Slark
Black Watch Regiment 1942-1944

Here he says that Annie Raulintis (the one who worked for the Kohlers) had the married name Annie Graham.  I looked back at my messages with Jane Ives (a descendant of Margaret Raulinitis), and she had also said that she believed her married name was Graham, but that she never had children.

Jane had also told me that Annie Raulinitis Graham had taken in her niece, Annie Flanagan, when she was 12.  She also told me that Annie Flanagan became a nun and still lives in New York.  From Jimmy's letter, it appears that they still have contact!  He says he believes she has three sisters.  That's true (Mary, Margaret, and Rose) but she's also got a brother, Joseph.  As far as I know, they all still live here in Scotland, but I haven't had contact with anybody other than Ives sub-group.

I was mistaken when I originally asked if Annie Raulinitis had been a nun.  I knew Annie Flanagan is, but I thought they both were.

I had also asked about the Kisielius brothers - that is, the brothers of my great-grandfather.  Jimmy previously told me there had been 5, but he wasn't certain of all their names.  I have yet to get around to tracking down the Wilkes-Barre group, but I will eventually.

He refers to Kitty's brother "Charlie", which is the Anglicized version of Kazimiras (in this case, Kazimiras Jr.).  I knew he was born in Glasgow because I found his birth record.  And I knew he was in the Lithuanian military because Chute had shown me a photo and told stories about his abduction.

His account of what happened to him differs from what Chute told me.  He says it was the Nazis that took him during World War Two, but Chute was quite clear about it having been the Soviets.  From my understanding of the history, it seems more plausible that it was the Soviets and that he was deported to Siberia before the Nazis even arrived in Lithuania.

We're jumping around in the timeline a little bit.  Now he's talking about how the family ended up back in Lithuania from Scotland, which was towards the end of World War One.  I didn't tell him in my letter anything about my theories, but what he says really confirms it.  He's vague on the details and gets the date wrong (not "early 1900", actually 1917, the tail end of WWI), but we have to bear in mind that he's relaying a story from Kitty that would have been told to her when she was just a girl 70-odd years ago.

He says the ships took the men to Siberia.  From what I've read, they landed in Archangel, around the north of Scandinavia in Russia.  By then WWI had ended and the Bolshevik Revolution had begun.  Some of the Scottish-Lithuanians remained in that port with the British convoy that had brought them there, and some left to join the revolution.  Those that stayed were eventually allowed to return to Britain.  Those that left were not able to "prove loyalty" and were not allowed back in (some had actively fought in the Red Army!).  I believe Kazimiras Sr. was one of the ones who was denied return.  Whether or not he was involved in the revolution, I couldn't know, but I do know that there was radical elements in Scottish-Lithuanian mining community who would have sympathized with the Bolsheviks, and I can only wonder if when Kitty says the men didn't want to fight against their "Brothers", she's remembering a mis-translation, and they actually didn't want to fight against their comrades!  At the time, they couldn't have known what the Soviets would become and what they would do to the Lithuanians, but later, once Stalin's reign of terror began, it would have become something that Kazimiras would never have spoken of again.

He's explaining, as he had previously, that the Kisielius brothers worked in the Scottish coal mines and saved their money to bring their sister Marijona over from Lithuania.  I did some searching and found that there are living descendants of Marijona here in Scotland today, but I haven't been successful in making contact (despite sending a couple letters already).

Just recently, I started looking again for a way to contact Anele "Helen" Tracy, but I hadn't gotten very far.  I don't know how current the address that he provides is, but I'll give it a try.  Hopefully I'll finally make contact!

He's explaining Kitty's recollection of the family's escape from Lithuania as the Soviets were returning at the end of World War II.  Kazimiras Jr had been abducted years earlier (before the Nazis arrived), so there's no doubt they would have been fearful of what would come.  Such was the case for many Lithuanians, especially because many of them had aided the Nazis (treating them as liberators) when they pushed the Soviets out in 1941.

It's also so refreshing to hear somebody refer to a school janitor as "a good job".  Something we lack today is respect for people who do real work, preferring instead to revere the investment class as "job creators" - absolutely disgusting.  It was also quite touching that they were trying to bring their "family cow" along.  I'm sure it was primarily because the cow was their one object of material wealth, but it just feels like they were looking after a pet.

Their escape to Germany is what eventually led to Kitty meeting Jimmy, Chute meeting Tevuk (Vacys Matulis), and their emigration to the United States.  He mentions Chute's first husband, who I know died of a stroke in Germany (buried in Munich - ***photo pending***).  He was called Vytautas Apenavicius, and I believe his family settled in Chicago.  Chute and Tevuk remained in contact with them and even visited them on occasion.  Someday I'll try to make contact myself.

Chute had told me that her parents were buried in Vilkaviskis, but I was always confused because she had also talked about living in Kaunas.  Now I know that both are true.

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.

The Gorbals

Two weekends ago I took a walk around The Gorbals in Glasgow, where my Lithuanian relatives first settled after arriving in Scotland.  Nothing of the neighborhood they would have known remains.  The area has been the target of urban redevelopment, twice now.  Only a small part of the street they lived on still exists.  The rest is buried under fairly new looking apartment buildings.

By my estimation, this building sits on top of where my family once lived.

They lived at 178 Rose St, which became 178 Florence St while they were still
 living there, and eventually was mostly built over with new apartment
 buildings.

I found an old map, dated 1896, that shows the neighborhood largely as it would have been when they arrived, around 1900.  It's incredible to see just how dramatically the place has been altered.  The old tenement buildings have been completely removed and some of the street names have been changed.

South Glasgow, 1896

Gorbals, 1911

Side-by-side, 1896 and 2012.  Notice that not just physical human histories
(buildings, etc) were erased in redevelopment, but also cultural ones.
Shamrock Street was re-named Pine Place, undoubtedly in an attempt to
remove all traces that this used to be a hotbed of Irish Republicanism.

In visiting this place, I couldn't help but feel a sense of injustice in the way it looked.  The neighborhood had been unsafe and filthy, by all accounts, but it was all they had.  It was a working class neighborhood filled with immigrants, mostly Irish Catholics and "Russian" Jews, but also a fair number of other eastern Europeans like my ancestors.  These people came to Scotland with virtually nothing, leaving their homes and their families behind.  They labored in the factories and mines for dismal pay and often in deadly conditions.  But at the end of the day, they had little to show for it.  Fortunes were made, but the workers saw none of it.

Gorbals, 1950s

Gorbals

In boom times, they could survive, but each time bust inevitably came, they lost everything.  Factory and mine owners could weather the storms on accumulated wealth, but the workers were abandoned.  Without a daily wage, desperation comes quick.  Urban decay leads to violence and crime and, soon enough, a place like the Gorbals gets a reputation.

The greatest injustice of all, however, is that it is the people themselves - including my ancestors - that shoulder the blame for it all.  The Lithuanian immigrants were described in this way in a newspaper editorial from 1900 (cited here):

They are most filthy in their habits of life, being a source of danger to the health of the community with their primitive ideas of order and cleanliness... They are fearfully intemperate in their habits [and] appeal to the knife... They are in short a most barbarous people and ... we seem to have the very scum of their nation.

But I just can't accept that the blame was attributable to the people themselves being somehow intrinsically different from everybody else.  In reality, the problem is rooted in unfair pay and uneven distribution of wealth.  It is a social problem stemming from broader inequity, not the result of personal failings and individual shortcomings!  They are the victims of social injustice, not simply the perpetrators of crime.

But this understanding is too complex, too nuanced for it to be picked up readily by those without some knowledge of the longer history of a place.  It is far easier to fault those most immediately associated with the problem.  So those in power sell the solution of redevelopment:  move the people out, tear down their crumbling homes, and put something clean and productive up in their place.

Injustice is what I see when I look at a place like the Gorbals.  Human histories have been wiped away.  Hard working people have been exploited and abandoned, and worst of all, they have been blamed for all that has happened.  I only wish the older generations of my Lithuanian-Scottish relatives were still living so that I could hear from them, firsthand, about what happened there.