Unknown Wife of Mildred's Son

Scrolling back through some of my earlier posts, I discovered a couple of comments on a post about Konstancija Matulyte. They were posted months ago, back in the beginning of January, but for some reason, the system never notified me!

It's a shame that I wasn't notified, because I'd very much like to share information. The person commenting identifies herself as the wife of Mildred's son. Sadly, she only appears as "Unknown" in the comment box, so I have no way to get back in contact (without some serious genealogical sleuthing!).

The Mildred she refers to was Konstancija's younger daughter, which means her husband is my "second cousin, once removed". The other information in her comment is interesting in itself:

Lidmilla Auelija Pavilauskas was born 14 April 1921 in Manchester NH.
Mother Kostance Matutiuke Pavilauskas, age 28
Father Leonas Pavilauskas, age 31.

I'm not sure where that information comes from, but it matches the information I know (bar a few spelling peculiarities). I suspect that the real spelling is Liudmila Aurelija Povilauskas, based on my knowledge of Lithuanian names. But it is helpful to know the "Mildred" was actually "Liudmila". The other main thing is Konstancija's maiden name, "Matutiuke", is a corruption of Matulyte (the female version of my own name, Matulis). I've seen mispellings like this all over the place, including Mildred's sister's marriage record, where it appears as "Matulinkie". On that same record, the unmarried "Mildred Palas" appears as a witness, and signs in her own hand (and the address she includes, 109-48 118th Street, Queens, NY, still exists today!).

Mildred's married name was apparently Crabtree, according to her sister's obituary. So with some effort, I might be able to track down the person who posted these comments.

There's a lot I'd like to know about this distant branch of the family, particularly how Konstancija and her older sister Anna arrived in the United States. What brought them here? Was there other family? These are questions I'll continue to explore through genealogical records myself, but sometimes there can be clues buried in living memory, family photos, or old letters.

So please contact me, Unknown Wife of Mildred's Son! I can offer quite a lot of information about your family's Lithuanian ancestry. I'm fairly easy to find if you google me.

Six Generations

I can now trace my Matulis lineage back 6 generations, including myself.

I was able to do this using a small clue on my great-great-grandfather Mykolas Matulis's death record. The record gives Mykolas's name as Михаил Кароловъ Матулисъ. His middle name "Karolov", is actually a patronymic - it is formed of his father's first name. My 3x-great-grandfather was Karolis Matulis! That's six generations.

With some searching, I was able to find Karolis's death record. He lived to 88 and died just six months before Mykolas, who died at just 55.

Karolis Matulis
(death 1917, age 88)

Column 1: Тысяча девятьсотъ семнадцатого дня ? года Іюля двадцать девятаго дня въ Жагуняхъ скончался Кароль Матолисъ отъ старости. Пріоб. Св. Таинъ. / One thousand nine hundred and seventeenth year, on the twenty-ninth day of July. Karol Matolis died in Жагуняхъ from old age. There was a communion of holy sacrament.
Column 2: Крестьянинъ Кракиновской волости имевшій отъ роду 88 лѣтъ оставилъ жену изъ Петкевичей, детей Іоанна, Михаила, Константина, Іосифа и Кароля, здешний прихожанин. / The peasant of Krekenava district, 88 years old, [died and] left his wife, of Petkevičai [family], and children Jonas, Mikhail, Konstantin, Josif, and Karolya. Parishioner here.
Column 3: Тѣло его по истеченію сутокъ на Пацунельском кладбище похоронилъ Кс. А. Купчисъ. / Ks. A. Kupčis buried his body after a day in Pociunelai cemetery.

The record provides lots of information to start building the family tree beyond my direct lineage. First, his wife, my 3x-great-grandmother, had the maiden name Petkevičiute. It doesn't give her first name, but I will still probably be able to locate her in the records. Karolis's children were Іоанн (probably Jonas), Михаил (Mykolas of course), Константин (Konstantinas), Іосиф ("Josif" or probably Juozas), and Кароля (Karolya).

Partial Matulis Family Tree

The tree above is partial. It leaves off most of the descendants beyond my direct lineage (Karolis >> Mykolas >> Silvestras >> Vacys >> John >> me), including those stemming from my grandfather's generation that I already know and have contact with.

Sadly, the record of Karolis's death doesn't give his patronymic, or else I'd be well on my way to identifying the seventh generation. Instead, I will need to search for Karolis's birth record, way back in 1829. Those records, however, are in Polish! They're in Polish because hiss birth preceeded the first rebellion against the Tsar in 1831, the November Uprising. He was just two years old when that happened. It seems my ancestors have a habit of being born into tumultuos times.

A Connection to History

When I found my great-grandfather Silvestras's birth record this past November, I was able to confirm the names of my 2x-great-grandparents: Mykolas Matulis and Katerina Milaševičiute.

I searched for the death records of Mykolas and Katerina at the time too, but came up empty handed. The search was slowing-going and laborious, given that the records were mostly un-indexed. Adding to the problem was that I assumed they'd lived much longer than they actually had, so I had started my search in the wrong date range. When I recently found the records, I learned that Katerina only lived to 47, and Mykolas 55. That means my great-grandfather Silvestras lost his mother when he was just 16 and father when he was 22!

Katerina Milaševičiute / Matuliene
(death 1912, age 47)

Column 1: Тысяча девятъсотъ восемнадцатого года Января двадцать девятаго дня въ Жагуняхъ скончался отъ рака Михаил Кароловъ Матулисъ. Пріоб. Св. Таинств (?)

Column 2: Крестьянинъ ______ волости Пацунельский прихожанинъ пятидесяти пяти лѣтъ оставилъ жену ________ урод (?) Ласианскую, сына Сильвестра и дочерей Анну, Констанцію, Яльзбету, Антонину.

Column 3: Тѣло въ узаконенное время похоронилъ на Пацунельскомъ кладбище Кс. _____ Купчина

Mykolas Matulis
(death 1918, age 55)

Column 1: Тысяча девятьсотъ двънадцатого года Января двадцать девятаго дня въ Жагуняхъ скончалась Катарина изъ Милашевичей Матолисъ отъ болезъни мизерере Пріобщена Св. Таинъ.

Column 2: Крестьянка Кракиновской волости оставшегося вдовцом Михаила Матолиса жена 47 лѣтъ Пацунельская прихожанка оставила сына Сильвестра и дочерей: Анну, Констанцію, Ельжбѣту и Антонину (?).

Column 3: Тѣло ся сего года Января 31 дня Кс. А. Купчисъ на Пацунельском кладбище похоронилъ.

Key bits of information here include the names of their other children (Silvestras's siblings) which really helps me to link up the various Matulis records I've been collecting from the parish registers. The children include Silvestras (Сильвестр my great-grandfather of course), Ona (Аннa), Konstancija (Констанцію), Elžbeta (spelled variously as Ельжбѣту and Яльзбету), and Antonina (Антонинa). I didn't know about those last two! There could be others too, as I believe the records only list surviving children -- any that may have predeceased their parents won't appear.

Counting back from his age at death, Mykolas would have been born around 1863, which is the very same year as the ill-fated January Uprising. The Tsar's response to the rebellion was harsh. After mass executions and deportations to Siberia, he implemented strict "Russification" policies aimed at supressing Lithuanian (and Polish) identity and culture. He banned the Lithuanian press, outlawed the Lithuanian alphabet, ended education in the Lithuanian language, and imposed a new administrative region called "Northwestern Krai". This attempt to "Russify" Lithuania, however, ultimately failed. In fact I've always believed that this suppression of culture is precisely why Lithuanians (myself included!) are so emphatic about the preservation of Lithuanian identity. (The more recent Soviet attempt at similar Russification only made resistance more resolute).

It was during the post-Uprising repression that the famed Lithuanian knygnešiai (book smugglers) risked their lives to carry Lithuanian literature and educational material across the border from Prussian Konigsberg. It was, in large part, thanks to them and underground homeschooling that Lithuanian identity was preserved during those difficult years. My great-great-grandfather Mykolas and great-great-grandmother Katerina would have grown up right in the middle of it! Notably, Mykolas died in 1918, just a couple weeks before the Act of Independence and the restoration of Lithuanian statehood. Oh, the changes they must have seen in their lifetimes!

One of my main motivations behind all this genealogy is that it helps to make my interest in history so much more real and relatable. When I'm able to imagine these events through the eyes of my own ancestors - through the eyes of people who bear my own name! - it just makes it all the more vivid.

Peasants of the Krekenava District

An interesting side note to these birth records I've been digging through, relates to the heading of one of the columns on the forms.

It reads: "To which parents and which estate or society [class?] do they belong, when and where, i.e. in which parish, was the baptised person born?"

To which estate does the person belong?! This appears to be a reference to the system of feudalism that the Russian Empire imposed on its territories. When the Russians took over in the late 1700s, they formalised a strict set of social rules and hierarchies. Common people were made into serfs who had few rights, including no freedom of movement. The practice formally ended in 1861 when Tsar Alexander II made the "Emancipation Edict". He was no progressive visionary though. In breaking the news to the nobility, Alexander gave his reasoning:  "It is better to abolish serfdom from above, than to wait for that time when it starts to abolish itself from below." Even after this edict, though, most serfs continued a meager existence.

The birth records I've been looking at were made some 35 years after the serfs were emancipated. It just seems nobody bothered updating the forms. Regardless, they still make a person's place in society clear. My ancestors are identified as крестьянь Кракиновской волости, "peasants of the Krekenava district".

Namesake

In addition to Anna's baptism record, I also managed to find my great-grandfather Silvestras's and send it off for transcription. In the meantime I've become quite good at discerning "Матулисов" in the handwritten documents, so I'm working my through a heap of them in an attempt to build out the tree more fully.

Literally, "Matulisov", a Russified version of my name.
(One of the more notable peculiarities of handwritten Russian
is that what looks like a lower case 'm', is actually a т!)

Silvestras Matulis, born 27 January 1896

Here's the transcription and my best attempt at translation:

	№	B i r t h d a y	B a p t i s m d a y	When, where, who and by whom, whether with water or with all rites of the sacrament christened?	To which parents and which estate or society [class?] do they belong, when and where, i.e. in which parish, was the baptized person born?	Who were the godparents at holy baptism, and who was present?
T r a n s c r i p t i o n	11	27	29	Тысяча восемьсот девяносто шестого года января двадцатьдевятаго дней, вь Пацунельскиь Р. Кот. филіяльномъ костель Кс: И. Мартин_ус_ окрещено дите именемъ: Сильвестрь, совечми обреядами таинства.	крестьянь кракиновской волости Михаила и Екатерины изъ Милашевачевь Матулисовь законногов супруговь сынь родившийся 1896 года 27 января вь Кургула_ Кракиновск__ прихода.	Восприемниками были: Сильвестрь Милашевичь, Барбара Милашевичов__
T r a n s l a t i o n	11	27	29	One thousand eight hundred and ninety sixth year, twenty-ninth day of January, in Pociuneliai R. Cat. filial church [??]: I. Martin?us? baptised a child named: Sylvester, with all rites of the sacrament.	Peasants of the Krekenava district Mikhial and Ekaterin of Milashevachev Matulisov [Mykolas Matulis and Katarina Milaševičiute], legal spouses, son born 27th January, 1896 in Kurgulai, Krekenava parish.	Witnesses were: Sylvester Milashevich, Barbara Milashevichov[??]

I initially searched through the records for 1895 looking for this document because that's the date that is on Silvestras's gravestone. But it turns out that he was actually born in 1896 and his gravestone is wrong!

Photo taken in 2013.
Shows incorrect birth year for Silvestras.

The spelling variants are getting a little crazy now. Of course the endings of names change in Lithuanian, but now with the Cyrillic character set and the Russian endings and conventions, it's getting downright disorderly. On this document, my 2x-great-grandparents are listed as Mikhail and Ekaterin, but on Anna's document, they are Mikhail and Katerina. On one they appear as "Matulisov", and on the other it's "Matolisov". Sometime Katerina's maiden name is "Milashevich" and sometimes "Milashevichov__" (with an extended ending that I can't quite make out). There are too many commonalities between the documents (and the village is much too small) for these to be just two very similarly named families, so I'm sure that's not the issue though. Besides, everything is corroborated by things my great-uncles in Lithuania have told me -- for example, that some of our relatives use "Matuolis" to this day.

The thing struck me the most on this document was the name of Silvestras's godfather: Сильвестрь Милашевичь. Sylvester Milashevich!! Or, in Lithuanian, probably Silvestras Milaševičius. The name I share with my great-grandfather (Brett Sylvester Matulis), goes back even further than I thought. I'm not sure yet if Silvestras Milaševičius is Katerina's father, or maybe her brother, but I immediately felt a connection to him. The "Sylvester" name is really extensive in my family. In addition to Silvestras Milaševičius, there is Silvestras Matulis (my great-grandfather), Silvestras Kemešys (my great-grandmother's brother), and Sylvester Žukauskas (my grandfather's first-cousin). All that in addition to it being my, my dad's, and my brother's middle name. I will definitely be searching for records of the Silvestras and Barbara listed as godparents here.

Besides what's transcribed about, there's an additional note in the margin, dated 22nd of April 1918. It's very hard to read but apparently relates to his marriage to "Anna Kemeš___". Of course that's Ona Kemešyte!, who I know he married in Krekenava. Perhaps the Pociuneliai priest just noted it here in the margin of the Pociuneliai book because the wedding took place at a different church. There's a second note dated 1965 (five years after his death, according to his gravestone), but it's just letters and numbers, so I don't know what it refers to.

Written in the margin.

Second note

Squiggles on a Page

The exciting find of the birth record for Anna, my great-grandfather's older sister, was frustrated by my inability to read handwritten Russian script -- "squiggles on a page", I called it. A Russian speaking friend helped a little, but also struggled. So I sent the document off to an online Russian transcription service (and crossed my fingers that I hadn't just volunteered my credit card for fraud). The result came back, and I'm happy to say, so far so good.

Here's what I found out:

	№	Р о ж д е н и я	К р е щ е н и я	Когда, где, кто и кемъ, одною - ли водою или со всеми обрядами таинства окрещенъ?	Какихъ родителей и къ какому сословию или обществу они принадлежатъ, когда и где, т.е. въ какомъ приходе родился крещаемьй?	Кто были по имени прозванию восприемниками при св. крещении и кто присутствовалъ?
T r a n s c r i p t i o n	17	18	19	Тысяча восемьсотъ девяносто первого года января девятнадцатого дня. Въ Посцунель???ъ Р.К. филіяльномъ костёле [??]: И. Мартыи[усол??]ъ окрещено дитя именемъ: Анна, съ всъими обрядами таинства.	Крестьянъ Кракиновской волости Михаила и Катержины изъ Милашевичевъ Матолисовъ, законныхъ супруговъ дочъ, родившаяся 1901 года 18 января въ Жиборт[???]ъ Кракиновского прихода.	Воспріемниками были: Константинъ Матолисъ Елеонорою Милашевичевою.

And this is my attempt at translating (with heavy reliance on Google and input from friends):

	№	B i r t h d a y	B a p t i s m d a y	When, where, who and by whom, whether with water or with all rites of the sacrament christened?	To which parents and which estate or society [class?] do they belong, when and where, i.e. in which parish, was the baptized person born?	Who were the godparents at holy baptism, and who was present?
T r a n s l a t i o n	17	18	19	One thousand eight hundred and ninety-first year January, nineteenth day. In Pociuneliai R.C. church of [??]: I. Marti[usol??] baptised the child: Anna, with all the rites of the sacrament.	Peasants of Krekenava district Mikhail and Katerina of Milashevichev Matolisov [i.e. Mykolas Matolis and Katerina Milaševičiute], lawful spouses, born 1901 year, 18 January in Žibartoniai of the Krekenava district.	Witnesses were: Konstantin Matolis, Yeleonora [Elenora] Milashevicheva.

Most of the information is what I already knew, but the right hand column is significant. It says who the godparents were. It's not something I've seen on a birth record before -- actually this is a record of baptism, so it makes sense -- but it could really help me to build the family tree. Since it is common for aunts and uncles to be godparents, it could provide me with some hints beyond the direct lineage of parents. Of course people who are completely unrelated can also be godparents, so I'll need to verify everything with other records.

The document also says Anna was born in Žibartoniai, which is the first I have seen that the family was there. It's very close to Kurgulai, where the family later lived and where my grandfather was born.

Анна Матолисовa

When I came across Lithuania's "eHeritage" website in 2014, I described it as a potential goldmine of family history information. I did discover some information about Antonina Kemešienė, but I initially under-estimated just how hard it was going to be to read the handwritten Russian script that many of the documents are written in. The minuscule bits I was able to decipher gave me hope that there's some really useful information there, but even the native Russian speakers I showed had a hard time reading these documents. Not only is the handwritten Cyrillic script hard to read, it's apparently a form of "Old Russian" that isn't spoken these days. Needless to say, I didn't get far digging into these records.

Recently, though, it occurred to me that the birth of Anna Sviatikiene would likely appear in these records. Her death record (from 1972 in New Hampshire, USA) listed her birth date as 18 January 1891, so I pulled up the ePaveldas site and found this in the 1891 index of the Births book:

I wasn't all that confident I was deciphering it correctly, but I suspected the first two words might say Маmолuсовa Анна, or "Matolusova Anna". I flipped to the page where record #17 was listed ...and quickly gave up any hope of being able to read it myself!

May as well be squiggles on a page for all I was able to get from it.

I asked a Russian friend if she was able read it though. With some difficulty, she was able to tell me a few key things that confirm this is, in fact, Anna's birth record. First, it lists the names Милашевичев and Матолисов -- in Latin characters, that's Milashevichev and Matolisov. These are the surnames of Anna's mother and father (it says she's "the legitimate daughter of the peasants Mikhail and Katarina").

"Matolisov" is a Russified version of Matulis, and "Milashevichev" is a close approximation of the (likely corrupted) version I have seen elsewhere, "Milasziawicziuke". The correct Lithuanian is possibly Milaševičiute / Milaševičius.

From Anna's marriage to Joseph Sviatikis in 1912, New Hampshire
(NB: "Russia" is actually Tsarist occupied Lithuania!!)

The other piece of information confirming its the right document is the location. The document is in the Catholic register from Pociuneliai parish church. That's the family church (I learned during my first visit to Lithuania) where many of our ancestors are buried. The record indicates that Anna was born in the "Krakenovsk" region - that's Krekenava - in the county just next to Pociuneliai. The family lived in the village of Kurgulai in the Krekenava district, but they were closer to Pociuneliai than the town of Krekenava itself, so that's why they appear in the Pociuneliai books. (That's not to say, of course, that some of the documents won't be found in the Krekenava books, though, so I'll need to search there in the future too!!).

Like I said before, these books are likely a massive source of family history information. They really need to be dug into, the Russian script notwithstanding.

Just one final note to conclude. The reason these documents are written in Russian is because, until 1918, Lithuania was under Russian Imperial rule and the Lithuanian language was forbidden in an attempt to "Russify" the population.

It didn't work.