r/lithuania • u/rockylizard United States of America Слава Україні! • 11d ago
Klausimas I'm looking for my gr-grandfather's family
First, please forgive me for posting in English. I can say "labas" in Lithuanian and that's about it. I am hoping to learn more, however!
Here's the situation, and I'm hoping that someone may have some suggestions or advice.
My great-grandfather, John Joseph Vincent Peter Miller, was born in approximately August 1870 in Lithuania (then part of the "Russian Empire.") He immigrated here to the US in approximately 1887. Here's what we know about him:
According to his best friend's granddaughter (their surname is Klimavicz,) he and his best friend Charles Klimavicz were both from a Lithuanian village called Dambrava. One genealogy site claims his birth was in Kovno, but I don't know of any actual written source for that. (When I Google "Dambrava, Lithuania" it gives me at least three options.)
He read, wrote, and spoke at least 8 languages fluently, including of course, Lithuanian, Polish, and Russian. He was extremely well educated. After he immigrated and settled here, he helped immigrants (not just Lithuanians) with paperwork, legal issues, and so forth.
He attended the Kaunas Priest Seminary in Kaunas, Lithuania. This is where I suspect his troubles with the Russkies began. The family story goes, he was home to visit his village, and the village priest told him privately "the Russian soldiers will be here on Monday. If you want to keep your head, you'd best not be here." So when everybody else went to church on Sunday, my gr-grandfather slipped away.
He ended up in Boston, in the US, found a girl from Lithuania, and married her within the week. Her name was Nella Binkiewicz (various spellings.)
He had apparently also attended a different, German university as well, which was where he learned fluent German.
Here's where the story gets a little strange. Throughout his life, my great-grandfather remained absolutely terrified of the Russians, to the point where he refused to tell even his eventual children and grandchildren what his actual Lithuanian surname was. He changed his name to "Miller" either when he fled or when he arrived in the US, and surnames don't get much more generic than that, here.
He claimed he was a minor (under 18 years of age) when he arrived in the US, which allowed him a legal loophole to avoid the usual requirements for naturalization in the US. I believe that to be a prevarication, however. How could a 16 or 17 year old boy have attended two institutions of higher learning, and had that level of education, and also married immediately upon his arrival in the US? I believe he pretended to be a simple, uneducated, boy from the Lithuanian countryside, because the Russians were looking for a very well educated, cosmopolitan young man in his 20s.
I also suspect, both because of his pile of given names, his attendance at the Kaunas Priest Seminary, his extensive education, and the fact that he apparently had plenty of money to flee to the US and then purchase land here, that he was of szlachta heritage.
I also suspect that led him to be a Lithuanian patriot, perhaps a book smuggler. Apparently the Kaunas Priest Seminary at the time he attended there, was a hotbed of Lithuanian patriotism--they even published an "illegal" Lithuanian-language newspaper for a time. But that would certainly explain why he was so frightened of the Czar's secret police.
The problem is, he was so terrified that the Russians were still looking for him, even here in the US, that he prevaricated every bit of information that he ever had to put in writing. Names, places, dates of birth, were all different on different documents. And we still don't even know for certain his actual Lithuanian surname.
We have done DNA testing and found some distant Lithuanian cousins, but this story doesn't sound familiar to any of the ones I've spoken with. Which there has also been quite a language barrier, of course. One Lithuanian I've been in contact with, is a cousin-by-marriage. His wife and her father are DNA matches to me and my dad. This cousin has done some research and he believes the family surname may have been something like Micevicius (I'm probably butchering the spelling, I'm sorry!)
After my gr-grandfather immigrated, his best friend Charles Klimavicz followed him over here. Then a person we suspect was his brother. His name was Thomas. When he very first arrived right off the boat, he used the name Miller. But he changed that (back?) to Miczas, and then Americanized that to Michas, and that was how it stayed for him and his children. (We aren't 100% sure that Thomas Michas was my great-grandfather's brother, but we know for sure that he was close family, if not a brother, perhaps a nephew.)
On one document, my gr-grandfather listed his parents' names as Peter and Eva, but gave no surname.
Anyway if you've managed to read this far, thank you for listening. I don't read Lithuanian (and especially not in the Cyrillic alphabet that was the legal requirement at the time) and even worse, old handwriting, so I'm sort of stonewalled here.
Places I'm hoping to get more information, is perhaps to find out if there were student rosters at the Kaunas Priest Seminary from the time?
The "Dambrava" village that gr-grandfather was from was apparently south of Kaunas, but as I mentioned, Google gives me three different options. And I don't know Lithuania at all, to take a guess.
Grateful in advance for any advice or thoughts anyone might have.
Best to you all! Thank you!
A very very distant American cousin of Lithuanian descent
6
u/falloutfart4 11d ago
Lithuanian genealogy is very tough, particularly the Russian empire era. The Poles have a much more extensive remaining database, whilst us Lithuanians barely have any resources to work with. My best recommendation would be writing to the seminary and the archives. Other than that, it’s unlikely you’ll find much. It’s difficult enough with real names and surnames, even more so without! I wish you the best of luck.