Trying to find photos from this old town in Lithuania: Wilkomir & where to f

Question:

Trying to find photos from this old town in Lithuania: Wilkomir & where to find records there of old family?

Looking for any people who have been to this old town that have info and took photos of it...and know where to get info on my relatives that came from there years ago and grave names.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: A VERY loaded question. I know this is probably related to your other question about the Siegel family, so I'll go from the point at which they left. But indulge me to give you a little history because it seriously affects the answer.

Lithuania is a relatively young country. In the 19th century it was very closely linked to Poland. Poland became partitioned during the century. To the west of Warsaw was the Prussian partition (later part of Germany). They were the earliest Poles allowed to leave to immigrate to the west. They were also wealthier than their eastern and southern brethren in peasant terms. We first find them emigrating in the 1860s. They peaked around 1878-80

To the South (Krakow, etc) was the Austrian partition (Galicia, etc). They were more subjugated, but still could own land, but the parcels became splintered with the death of each owner as each surviving spouse and child got an equal share. By the 4th or 5th generation they were fighting over gardens. They started leaving in the late 1870s and peaked in the late 1880s. You'll often see them in records as Galician, Austrian-Pole, etc.

The Russian Poles were part of the old Congress of Poland. It included most of Lithuania, as well. I'm not able to figure out if your town was specifically part of the old Congress of Poland, but it appears pretty close. They started emigrating late by Polish standards. Most couldn't get out before 1890 and they make up the bulk of Poles appearing through Ellis Island. On the whole, they were treated like slaves, had very few possessions in the world and were considered dirt poor. I don't know how most were able to buy the passage to get out of there.

Records from East Prussia (as most of it was called) and the Lithuanian areas are sketchy. Unlike their Prussian brothers, most weren't Catholic, so those records won't help. The majority were Orthodox or Jewish and records were kept differently. In the German and Austrian areas, there were census records, civil registers, etc. The Russians were not as meticulous in record keeping. In fact, they were outright sloppy.

The best records were kept by the visa offices. Many are still available, but you need to be a detective of sorts. Start with the LDS to see what they have. Hopefully they're indexed, but not always.

Some of the records from the former Soviet Union are becoming available to us. Eventually they'll all be filmed and available, but here's a decent (albeit overly scholarly) essay about the situation (forgive me, Tom):
http://www.polishroots.org/paha/polish_l...

The best guidance you can get in this political minefield would probably be from the Balzekas Museum in Chicago. I believe they're around 6500 S Pulaski (between 63rd and Marquette anyway). It's devoted to Lithuanian culture, heritage and history. They have to have the experts available to help you. You might also try the Polish-American museum in Chicago (the two cultures being so inextricably linked) and they have a library onsite staffed by very skilled volunteers who do have access to bizarre records most of us would never dream still exist. They're also linked to the Polish Genealogical Society of America.

I don't think you're quite ready to contact him yet, but a name to keep for serious questions of researching in the area is Dr. Marek Jerzy Minakowski. He's in Poland, but is spearheading some very extensive programs to document marriages and other records in partitioned Poland. His English is decent and his knowledge of the area is extensive. The beginning of your search wouldn't be the time to contact someone of his calibre. But once you've exhausted all of the resources available to you from the US side, you might pick his brain on what's available in Europe and how he would suggest you get copies of it. His email address is: office@przodkowie.com

One thing that bothers me from the records provided in the other post is that the Hamburg passenger records show Channa and kids getting on the ship in Sept 1891. The 1900 census shows them arriving in the US in 1892. This is another flukey thing about this family. On January 1, 1892 Ellis Island opened. Only your family isn't in their records...or at least I can't find them. And by some strange fate, the CastleGarden.org site won't open all day. Hamburg says they were coming to NYC. So they either went through Ellis Island or Castle Clinton. I just wish I could find a copy of the passenger list to prove which it was and where the records are kept so that we can find the others.

What's ultimately out of my league, and probably out of most of our league around here, is that your ancestors were Eastern European Jews. I claim lots of expertise in researching Catholic and Orthodox Christians, even Uniates, from Eastern and East-Central Europe. But Jews are a whole other world. Catholic and Orthodox records still exist and are filmed by the LDS to a greater or lesser degree. I have no clue what's out there from synagogues, particularly after the last major war. Christians from the region were documented by the Germans and Austrians, not just the Russians. Poland had a period of stability and independence, but Lithuania flipped back and forth. I don't know what kind of civil records you'll be able to find, especially after pogroms and Russian occupation. Wilkomir seemed to have a decent sized Jewish population from the records I've seen, but I have no clue what kind of synagogue records survived for the area. Both the Russians and the Germans were none-too-kind to that part of the population. It's so hard to give you direction on where else to find records. I would probably steer you to both a Lithuanian research center, like the Balzekas, but also to Jewish resources. They have much more experience in the region and with this ethnic group than do the rest of us. Grave names, synagogue records, the type of records they kept and how to get them would all be better answered from those sources.

Anyway, I hope some of this helps...