Bring out the pipe, the hat with earflaps, and be a Sherlock!
At some point, the photos and documents your have in your family records and memorabilia box may not be enough. You know where your parents lived, that is – wherever you grew up. Chicago, Montreal, Toronto, Boston… You have pictures of some relatives, sufficient information for a good start on a Family Tree. The wheels have begun turning in your head and you realize that you want to know the whole family story from as far back as possible. No one else in the family is as excited as you are, because a) they’re too young, or b) they’re lazy, or c) they don’t know how to go about it. Apparently, you can hire someone to do this, but it’s much more fun to do it yourself, because it’s interesting and educational detective work (also known as research). All you need is your computer (and mouse, if you still use one)!
For example, you may have met or heard of cousins, as I have, with whom you can compare family trees, but the connection is not crystal-clear. From our latest conversations, I now know that the cousins in question found relatives in a town called Rokiškis. Contacting them would be the simplest way to discover how our fathers are related. You may also write to the local museum (find it on the city‘s website) to ask for a link to any available archives. Official archive services (archyvai.lt) may require an application form and a fee. Cemetery records are available via the internet, however the date of death is usually required, as I found out from my query to a cemetery in Kaunas.
Delving into archival websites such as birth/death records and immigration is not simple. There are a great number of websites, and one needs a substantial amount of time and patience to find what you need. However the journey can be fascinating. If you are interested in dog-paddling through the internet, www.cyndislist.com has a comprehensive list of worldwide genealogy sites, (Lithuanians are not featured prominently). The site www.dpcamps.org gives a vast list of sites which require some navigation skills, but I found nothing relating to the DP camp my parents were in (Regensburg), which I will pursue further. However I did find a concise history of DP‘s by Mel Jay at https://owlcation.com/humanities/Lithuanian-Diaspora-A-History-of-WW-2-Lithuanian-Displaced-Persons, with suggested reading, and an article from „Lituanus“ by Linas Saldukas titled „Culture in Adversity: the Lithuanian DP experience“. These are the things that distract me from my task, but they‘re so interesting…
If time is limited, your first line of questioning should be directed at any and all existing relatives. Write to them, call them, ask for photos, dates of birth, marriage, death. BEFORE IT‘S TOO LATE!
My grandparents’ homestead in Kalniečiai, 1938 (Rokiškis area)
Also, you can launch a second line of attack: today I created a Facebook page to reach out to relatives who are already on FB or have emails. Anyone can be invited, but the page is „secret“, that is – only invited members can see it. I kept thinking about the best way to reach out to relatives in Europe, South America and here in North America, and decided to jump in. I put up a photo of our grandparents‘ homestead, and I hope to get some responses. At least it will be something interesting to read on FB…