LithuanianCatholic

AncestorSearch.com

Lithuanian Roman Catholic (RC) Ancestor Search Information

U.S. Sources of U.S. Immigrant Lithuanian's Birth Data


Outline

  • Overview
  • Information Sources and Repositories
  • List of Pages in This Section



Overview


This section describes how to obtain from family sources and U.S. records the information that you need to find about your immigrant Lithuanian ancestor and his/ her immigrant relatives before searching records in Lithuania.  This includes examples of records of my own ancestors and descriptions of my own search results and of the problems that typically occur for somebody trying to "decipher" the information contained in the records of an immigrant Lithuanian ancestor.  [Scope: there is already much material available about how to use U.S. records to search for one's immigrant European ancestors and it's not my intent to provide in-depth information on any of that material.  My aim is to focus on the aspects of that same material that are unique to searching for one's immigrant Lithuanian ancestors.]



Information Sources and Repositories


In general, the two sources of this information about your immigrant ancestor are:

  • Family-Sourced Data.  To obtain this data, you have to talk to your family members and any other persons who might have information about your immigrant ancestor.  Those people are the repository of this information, and all of us have finite lives and memories.  If you don't do this now, then the next person in your family who later decides to do it will most likely have less information available than you have today.  With respect to tracking the link to your immigrant ancestor's birth family in Lithuania, collecting this family data now might be important.
  • U.S. Records.  In general, civil records are available from federal, state, county, city and local government source repositories; church records are available from church source repositories; records of employers and institutions are available from their repositories, and so forth.  Some records are private or not available.  Some records have been lost.  Online data banks of many of these records are available for genealogical search; some require a paid subscription and some are free. There is much information available online about how to locate these genealogy websites and the various types of records.  For instance, the following link to FamilySearch.org: https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/United_States,_How_to_Find_Genealogy_Records



List of Pages in This Section