Matulis Group

Of all the names I'm connected to, the one I've written about the least is the one I carry, Matulis.  I get it, of course, from my paternal grandfather Vacys Matulis, who was born in Lithuania (in the town of Pasvalys, I believe) in 1923.  We always referred to him as Tevuk, which is short for Tevukus, Lithuanian for grandpa.  He was a truly exceptional man with incredible stories (though with a penchant for embellishment!).  He fled Lithuania during World War II and (if my understanding of his stories is correct) was in the German labor camps - a truly horrific experience that left him emotionally scarred and a bit paranoid.  One of my favorite things about Tevuk was how he used to tell of these times.  Unfortunately I was mostly told these stories before I had a real grasp on the history or context, so my memories are mostly vague outlines of what probably actually happened.  I'll refrain from recounting them just yet, as they'd most likely be filled with inaccuracies.  My cousin, Nick, made a fair number of recordings years back, so someday when I can get them from him, I'll be able to make better sense of my grandfather's backstory.

One thing that is absolutely clear in my mind is that Tevuk was just about the hardest worker you could imagine.  He had a work ethic that is just hard to find these days.  It something that is common in immigrant communities regardless of where they come from, probably partly due to the fact that they feel as though they must constantly prove their worth.  He used to tell me about how he would work on the family farm as a kid from dusk to dawn.  I recall him telling me how he worked the night shift at his regular job when he first arrived in the US and then all day renovating the small cottage they lived in.  He saved his pennies and eventually sold the house he fixed up to buy the farm in East Schodack in cash.  That farm is part of some of my earliest memories.  He was a proud farmer that continued to grow an impressive garden into his later years.  Below is a photo of that garden.

Out, standing in his field.

Tevuk met my grandmother while they were in a displaced persons in Germany in the aftermath of WWII.  Her first husband had only recently passed away from a stroke and she was no doubt still in mourning.  But during that era gender roles were very rigid, and I believe she felt as though she needed somebody to support her.  They married and my uncle "Charlie" (Gediminas) was born while they were still in Germany.

Tevuk and Chute (probably just after arriving in USA)

On my most recent visit to New York, Chute gave me the address of a distant relative on the Matulis side who lives in New Hampshire.  Phyllis Ouellet is descended from the Zukauskas / Kemesis line, and her grandparents were the ones who sponsored Chute and Tevuk to come to the US.  I've never met Phyllis, but I wrote a letter and asked what she might know about the Matulis group.  Turns out she knew a fair few things and even had some fantastic old photos.  Using information from Phyllis and some old notes I had taken from Tevuk, I was able to re-create this pedigree showing the connection between us.

Konstantinas "Konstanty" was possibly married 3 times.
It is unclear if death or divorce was the reason.

As it shows above, my great-grandfather's name was Silvestris, which I've always known to be the source my, my father's, and my half-brother's middle name, Sylvester.  Phyllis pointed out, however, she had an uncle Sylvester Zukauskas, who was my father's god-father - no doubt that's part of how my dad got his middle name.  I speculated that maybe Andrew or Peturnelia Zukauskas knew Silvestris Matulis when they were still in Lithuania and that they named their son after him.  Phyllis agreed it was possible.

Phyllis also recalled when Chute and Tevuk first arrived.  They lived with her grandparents (Tevuk's aunt and uncle) briefly in Londonderry, NH along with her parents, her uncle, and her.  She was a about 6 years old, she tells me.  She remembers that Tevuk (who she knew as "Uncle Walter") used to ride a bike to Derry for work.  Being a bike person myself, I really enjoyed knowing that.  She believes he worked doing something with cement blocks.  Then, she adds, "whatever it was, it was hard work.  Your grandfather was not afraid of work."

She remembers that they eventually bought a duplex house on Arlington Street (#42 she believes) in Manchester, NH and that he then worked for Foster Beef (no doubt the meat packing company I recall him telling me about).  After that, she says, they moved to New Britain, CT where he worked in ball bearing manufacturing, and then to the farm in East Schodack, NY.  She's not certain which house it was that he renovated, but I think it must have been the one in New Britain.

She sent along heaps of old photos, which I've sent along to my uncle Mike and Chute to help translate the inscriptions.  My hope is that they will contain some helpful information, though most are damaged from having been glued into an album.

"Uncle Walter" is actually Vacys Matulis, my grandfather.
This is the first picture of Silvestris I've ever seen!  He bears a striking
resemblance to Tevuk as I remember him.  And Tevuk, second from the
right, does resemble the man I remember.

Tevuk and Chute
(probably after arriving in the US)

Back of the photo reads, "Uncle Walter's parents".
That's Silvestris Matulis and Ona Kemesis,
my great-grandparents.

I'm not certain who these people are yet because I can't read the Lithuanian
inscription, but I feel like I'm looking at myself when I see the man in the back left.

This one has mostly Lithuanian writing, but it also says
"Sylvester's Grandfather with third wife" in English.
That would mean it's Konstantinas Kemesis, my
2x-great-grandfather, with two people I'm unsure about.

There are several more photos, but I'll wait for Chute's and Mike's response before speculating who they are.

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.

Scottish Diaspora Tapestry

I just learned of the fantastic Scottish Diaspora Tapestry project.  They're starting a project to chronicle the spread of Scottish heritage around the globe.  I was delighted to find that they plan to include the connection between Scotland and Lithuania on the tapestry and are looking for people with Scottish-Lithuanian heritage to be involved.  I've already offered to play a part.  I'll probably be most useful for the "stories" and "research" steps (if I haven't already missed those parts), but they do say that, for the stitching, "no experience is necessary, only enthusiasm!", so we'll see.

This is what I sent in my initial email:

This is a great project! I viewed the Presontonpans Tapestry a while back and it was fantastic. I'm from Scottish-Lithuanian roots, and I'd be keen to be involved in the project. To give a brief synopsis of my family's story, my Scottish-Lithuanian ancestors lived in Glasgow about 100 years ago before the (scarcely remembered) Anglo-Russian Military Convention. When that went into force, the family was split apart and my branch re-settled in Lithuania. They were displaced again at WWII and settled in the US, which is where I was born. A couple years back I was admitted to study for a PhD at Edinburgh Uni without any knowledge that my Lithuanian ancestors had been here. It was just by chance that my elderly gran mentioned that we might still have relatives here, which (after a fair bit of family history research) turned out to be the case. I've since reconnected with the Scottish branch of the family, who were equally surprised and delighted to learn they had Lithuanian-American relatives.

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.

Pedigree

This is my pedigree so far.  Pedigrees are different from family trees in that they show only the direct ancestors of an individual.

National Anthem

I've been quite bad at keeping this blog up-to-date lately, neglecting to write about recent discoveries, our Thanksgiving gathering with my Scottish cousins, and all the fascinating things we've learned about Jessee's family tree.  But I just returned from a visit home where I had a really moving interaction with Machute, my Lithuanian grandmother.

For about as long as I can remember, there has been a tapestry hanging in my grandparents house with a few short verses of Lithuanian writing.  Actually, I believe Tevukus brought it home from his first return visit to Lithuania after the 1990 restoration of independence.  I've been curious in the past about what it says, so when Machute began to explain it on this visit, I quickly switched on my audio recorder.  This is what she said:

download mp3
According to the wikipedia entry, the poem was written in 1898 when Lithuania was still a subject of the Russian Empire, right around the time that my Lithuanian ancestors emigrated to Scotland.  I know the Czar had forbidden the Lithuanian language and culture, so it must have been viewed as subversive.  It was adopted as the official national anthem in 1919, after the collapse of the Empire and shortly before my branch of the family returned to Lithuania.  That was only a couple years before Machute was born, so she would have grown up knowing the song, and it certainly would have had significant meaning to her.  When the Soviets annexed and re-occupied Lithuania in 1940, the song was banned again.  Machute was there when that happened and lived under it for at least a few years (I'm quite sure she was still there in 1943).  Until the 1990 independence, the song would have represented much of what had been lost, nationally, but also personally for my grandparents.  It's no wonder that it has such significance and is so emotional for her to read.

These are the lyrics:

Lithuanian Lietuva, Tėvyne mūsų, Tu didvyrių žeme, Iš praeities Tavo sūnūs Te stiprybę semia. Tegul Tavo vaikai eina Vien takais dorybės, Tegul dirba Tavo naudai Ir žmonių gėrybei. Tegul saulė Lietuvoj Tamsumas prašalina, Ir šviesa, ir tiesa Mūs žingsnius telydi. Tegul meilė Lietuvos Dega mūsų širdyse, Vardan tos, Lietuvos Vienybė težydi!

Official English Lithuania, our homeland, Land of heroes! Let your sons draw their strength From our past experience Let your children always follow Only roads of virtue, May your own, mankind’s well-being Be the goals they work for May the sun above our land Banish darkening clouds around Light and truth all along Guide our steps forever May the love of Lithuania Brightly burn in our hearts. For the sake of this land Let unity blossom.

And with those words, we are both very excited to be Lithuanian.

Disappointing Records

The records that I mentioned in the last two posts turned out to be somewhat disappointing in terms of information pertinent to the group of us looking.  There apparently was not a list of deportees (of either the men prior to the end of the war, or of the dependents after the end of the war).  Although, I wouldn't mind having a look through them myself at some point.

One thing of interest was a letter referring to the "Lithuanians now in Lithuania who desire to rejoin their families in the United Kingdom".  That would probably include my great-grandfather Kazimiras.  Images of the letter are below:

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