All posts in Archives & Records

Every Lithuanian search eventually comes down to one question: what was this village called, and which parish did it belong to? The same place may appear in a family letter, a Russian-era baptism, a Polish gazetteer and a modern map under entirely different names, and…

When the records are not online, you write. Lithuania’s archives are spread over several buildings and towns, each with a different focus, and a good request is short, specific and in the right language. This guide explains who holds what, what to put in a…

Lithuanian records are online in pieces. One site shows images without an index, another indexes but only in Lithuanian, a third holds a few parishes and a fourth belongs to a society for one minority. This guide follows a search from the first click: finding…

Church books record events, one person at a time. Household lists record who was living together, and in a country where church books can have gaps, that is often what connects one generation to the next. This guide covers the three main kinds of Lithuanian…

For most Lithuanian families, the church books are the record. They stand in for birth certificates, marriage licenses and death registers, and they cover a surprisingly large share of the population. This guide takes one book apart: who kept it, when each confession began keeping…