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In Lithuania: Kaunas County

Kaunas county is divided into Kaunas city, plus six municipalities: Raseiniai m., Kedainiai m., Kaunas m., Jonava m., Kaisiadoriai m., Prenai m. and Birstonas m. If your ancestors are from Kaunas county, or you have questions about this area, this is the forum to discuss.

Wikipedia page for Kaunas county.
Kaunas County Library (in Lithuanian).
A free, downloadable Travel Guide 2009-2010 for Kaunas from In Your Pocket.

2001 Census
Kaunas City municipality. (In Lithuanian).
Kaunas County rural settlements and their inhabitants. (In Lithuanian).

Churches:
Kaunas City:
Arch-Cathedral of Saints Peter & Paul

Church of St. Gertrude
Wikipedia page.
St. Michael the Archangel
Wikipedia page.

Lithuanian Army Records for the Wars for Independence (1919-1920)
This site is in Lithuanian, but it is a valuable resource in finding ancestors who stayed behind in Lithuania, or emigrated later. It lists volunteers for the Lithuanian Army during the Wars for Independence. The link below will take you to the names beginning with "A". Just click on the first letter of the surname for which are searching.

Fulfillment of military service earned the soldier free land. The descriptions generally give a certificate number, and where the land was granted. Birthdays and relative information may also be listed.

http://www.versme.lt/sav_a.htm

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Permalink Reply by Saul Anuzis on January 20, 2010 at 9:21pm

My father's side of the family is from Kretinga & Kaunas...family name Anuzis. I'm just starting to put together what I have "on paper" from immigration records and my folks papers.

I look forward to sharing information and hopefully helping others in the group.

Permalink Reply by Richie C. on January 21, 2010 at 10:19am

Saul,
I checked the Lithuanian internet phone directory. The Anuzis name is way more common than your Vilnonis name. There were 41 listings in Kretinga alone. Only 7 in Kaunas.

Permalink Reply by Denis Charles Jeff on January 23, 2010 at 9:47pm

My Grandfather, Emil Jaffe, came from Kovensky (according to his alien records when he arrived in Australia). I have searched for where Kovensky really is in Lithuania and have come up with the following:
1. A region around Kaunas - roughly what you have described as Kaunas County
2. The Polish word for a specifically Jewish area in Kaunas city which has now been obliterated. This info was given by a
person in a tourist agency in Kaunas when we visited there a couple of years ago.

I have no certain answer to where Kovensky really is but would appreciate if anyone has any clues.
Regards, Denis Jeff

Permalink Reply by Richie C. on January 23, 2010 at 10:57pm

Denis,
My first thought was to search the shtetl seeker at JewishGen, which i'm sure you've already done. That gave me Khovanskiy somewhere in Russia. Some Googling and I arrived at the surname Kovensky/Kovenski deriving from the place name of Kaunas. However, I also found a reference in a book, Vitebsk: the life of art
By Aleksandra Semenovna Shatskikh. In it, it says, "...in the remote town of Novo-Aleksandrovsk, located in Kovensky Province (now known as Zarasai, in Lithuania)"

Zarasai is in Northeast Lithuania in Utena County, very near the Latvian border, on the edge of Lake Zarasas. It is both a district and a municipality. There is a website which has an English option, just click on the British flag, upper left. Searching Zarasai, JewishGen does come up with a page, listing distances to other Jewish communities. However, that said, Wikipedia tells us that the Yiddish name for the town is Ezhereni.

I also found this.

Permalink Reply by Richie C. on January 23, 2010 at 11:04pm

Denis,
But then I found this, which brings us back to Kaunas gubernia.

I found this blog and can't tell which Zarasai they mean, however something caught my eye. At the bottom is a list of surnames. One of them is Ioffe. Since "I" and "J" are sometimes interchangeable in Lithuanian, it made me wonder if Ioffe might not be the same as your Jaffe. Just a thought.

Permalink Reply by Denis Charles Jeff on January 26, 2010 at 2:50am

So you have taken the same route I did and ended up back in Kaunas.There are many Jaffe families but unless I know the correct shtetl it doesn't help. The Jewish researcher at the archives in Vilnius has many records but they are all sorted in boxes relating to shtetls and not names. So there are 2 Zarasais.One is in the North East of Lithuania - but in the old days this city was called Ezerenai, then Novoalksandrovsk by the Russians, and then Zarasai if I read it correctly. The other is Zarasai uezd in Kaunas gubernia not far south of Kaunas city.There was a big Jewish population in both places.

Permalink Reply by LeAnn Talbot on October 31, 2010 at 5:58pm

Try going to FEEFHS.org and looking at the maps section. There is a map of the Baltics: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1882. I found Soloki that I was looking for and is now what would be present day Salakis, Lithuania. It is in the Covno Province.

Permalink Reply by Richie C. on February 19, 2011 at 2:43am

WHen I'm village hunting I do two things. First, the Excel spreadsheet that some Angel did on the Lithuanian Genealogy group at yahoo. Seond....go to Google Maps from your browser. Type in XXXXX, Lietuva or Lithuania. Then, highlight your X's and start typing in the first letters of the village you're looking for. Google will suggest placenames. I've found that helpful

Permalink Reply by John Peters on January 30, 2010 at 12:41pm

There is a very small village named Kovenka on the very border of Lithuania and Latvia in the Zarasai district 5km north of the town of Zarasai.

John Peters

In Lithuania: Kaunas County

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