Initial Contact with Lithuanian Family

Amazingly, we located my mother's Aunt Isabele who is about 85 years old and living with her son. We learned that Uncle Antanas is also living and is around 90 years of age. Aunt Juozefa died about 3 years ago. She had been sent to Siberia during the mass exiles of Lithuanians. My mother had thought that Uncle Antanas had also been sent to Siberia. Hopefully we will learn more soon.

A very kind woman on the Lithuanian Genealogy Yahoo Group located Aunt Isabele by calling people in the towns listed on the letters that we have and located her phone number and spoke with her son. They were happy that we were trying to find them. My mother is overjoyed and has written a letter to her Aunt Isabele to try to arrange a time to meet in August when my mother and father will travel to Lithuania.

We are all trying to learn as much as we can about Lithuania. I just read a heart wrenching memoir from a woman who survived Siberian deportation. I learned that only 1 in 8 of those deported to Siberia survived. I find it miraculous that my great aunt and uncle both survived and perhaps my mother will be able to meet her uncle in august. We are thanking God for guiding our search for family and will continue to post updates as we continue on our journey in connecting with our long lost family.

Viewing of Izabella Greivys

This photo was taken in August 1967 at the funeral of Izabella Greivys, maiden name Setvita. She was my grandfather's mother.

Isabelei Stankienei

Here is a photo of my grandfather's sister, Isabele. I believe she was born sometime after 1921 - after Izidorius and Izabella Greivys moved back to Lithuania because she was not pictured in the family passport (see first blog post). I have a letter from her to my grandfather from 1986 and I am sending it to someone to translate in hopes that we can learn more about the family. I know she was married to a Stankus and that they lived in the Silutes region.

I searched facebook for all users with last name Stankus located in Lithuania and sent a message to all 16 results and one may be promising. He said he had some family in the Silutes region and was going to call his grandfather to see if he knew Isabele.

I have hope that the letters from Isabele may be the most promising lead we have to connecting with family.

Interactive Map of Lithuania

I made a route on an interactive map of Lithuania that connects some of the towns that my grandpa's family is from. His youngest sister Isabella lived in a town called Labatmedis and also a town called Virkytai. My grandpa lived in Aisenai and I found two towns by that name so I linked both of them which are not too far apart. They all lived very close to the Baltic Sea near the port town of Klaipeda and right near the border of the Kaliningrad Oblast.

Lithuanian surnames

Since I do not know much about the Lithuanian language - finding the correct spellings of names was a bit of a mystery - I was fortunate to find a Lithuanian Genealogy Yahoo group and the members have been extremely helpful! It is much easier to begin the search for family with an online group of likeminded individuals. I found the group through the Lithuanian Global Genealogical Society which is also an excellent resource.

Surnames in Lithuanian are subject to numerous suffixes which tell something about the person like male or female, married or unmarried. I noticed that several letters from my grandfathers sister Isabella had different endings like Stankus, Stankai and Stankiene. I sent a message to the yahoo group and received some excellent clarification.
"for married who's husband is STANKUS - would be Izabele Stankiene.
if you say my family is Stankus, in Lithuania we say: my family is STANKAI.
Juozas Greivys, married - Greiviene, maden Greivyte"

I also found an entry in Wikipedia on Lithuanian names and and excellent article from Lituanis journal if you would like to read more about it.

Priekule

So I found Priekule - it is a postal region near an inlet of the Baltic Sea in the Klaipeda region. This is where my grandpa's cousin Domas Norvilas lived. He lived in a town called Pangesai

I am thinking that "Pastas" may be the Lithuanian word for Post Office because I have seen it in all of the addresses.

Pangesai is in the Priekule Pastas region.

Kaimas Aisenu

So I think I've found the village that my grandfather lived in before emigrating to the United States. It is the village of Aisenai which is on the outskirts of Klaipeda. Whew! Lithuanian is a tough language to decipher! I am becoming excited for my mother and her upcoming trip and wish I could tag along and see the places that my grandfather lived in and perhaps meet some cousins.

So from some quick google searching on Lithuanias google search engine www.google.lt - I have figured out that
Kaimas means village, Apskritys (or Apskritis) means district or county - and I am trying to decode the words Prekules and Pasta.

I found my grandfathers affidavit of birth from when he returned to America in 1936. This is where I found his address - Kaimas Aisenu, Valescius ir Pasta Vevirzenu, Apskritys Kretin. I googled Kaimas Aisenu and found the map of Aisenai. Lots of weird spelling changes to decipher and decode. Lucky thing I majored in Linguistics.

Klaipeda?

This is the address of Izidorius Grevys - I am having trouble figuring it out - I think he was in Klaipedos - is this same as modern day Klaipeda? Having trouble deciphering the rest.

Grevys/Grevis/Greivis

This is a photo of the passport used by my mother's paternal grandfather, Izidorius Grevys (or Grevis)to return to Lithuania after they had emigrated to the United States. They had learned that life was getti ng better in Lithuania and so returned to Lithuania in 1921.

Izidorius Grevis was born in 1894 in Lithuania and was married to Izabella Setvita (unsure of date of birth - she was also born in Lithuania). They had four children: Juozas (Joseph), , Juozefa (Josephine) Antonas(Anthony) and Izabel. I believe Izabel was born in Lithuania after they returned since she is not in the photo of the passport.

The passport says:

No. 12797

The bearer of this passport Izidorius Grevis -pati (wife) - Izabella - vaikai (children) - Juozas - Juozefa - Antonas is a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania. All civil and military authorities whom it may concern are hereby requested to permit him (her) a safe and free passage to Lithuania via Germany Latvia object reside there. Given at Washington September 7, 1921.

Personal Description
Age: 27
Height: 5 ft 6 in
Weight: 150 lbs
Eyes: Gray
Hair: Brown
Complexion: Fair
Distinctive Marks: Scar on the nose
Occupation: Laborer