Lithuania-Unique Aspects of Family Tree Documentation

Use of "De-Russified" Lithuania Place Names


Although it has been traditional in genealogy to include the place-name nomenclature that existed at the time of the ancestral event, I instead use the present-day nomenclature for several reasons, including the fact that it avoids use of nomenclature like "Russia" or "Russian Empire".  


An example of using the historical place-name nomenclature would result in the following for the 1883 birthplace of my grandfather: Abokai (village), Telšiai (district), Kaunas (province), Russian Empire. 

About the "Russian Empire".  Although my Lithuanian grandparents were ethnic Lithuanians who considered themselves to be from "Lithuania", there was no place called "Lithuania" on world maps during the nineteenth century.  The basic dilemma for me from the viewpoint of listing the location of a nineteenth-century ancestor event in "Lithuania" is that the world powers at that time accepted that the Lithuanian lands were part of the "Russian Empire" or "Russia", yet I know that my immigrant Lithuanian grandparents (and everyone else in their immigrant Lithuanian communities) would have disliked any connotation that they were somehow "Russian" because they viewed the Russians acting under the Russian Tsars as unwelcome and brutal occupiers of the Lithuanian lands.  I resolved my dilemma by using present-day nomenclature for the locations of ancestor events.



Copyright © LithuanianCatholicAncestorSearch.com. All rights reserved.

LithuanianCatholic

AncestorSearch.com

Lithuanian Roman Catholic (RC) Ancestor Search Information