> My research indicates that Lithuania, in that time period, may also be > considered AUSTRIA, but I have no means to substanciate it. Mother, however, > always claimed Lithuanian decent. > Also, according to my mother's original birth certificate (filed in 1923), > her Father & Mother's birthplace as AUSTRIA but an ammended birth certificate > filed around 1942 by my mother listed her father and mother's birthplace as > Lithuania. > > Thus, my mother's parents were born in Austria or Lithuania. I would tend > to believe Austria. > > They were Catholic. > > Joe Lynn > [email protected] (Joe) Please advise this person that Lithuania was in the Russian Partition of Poland not the Austrian partition of Poland prior to WW I. The surnames are not Lithuanian - Polish or Slovak maybe. She should have some idea of the ethnic languages spoken by the ancestors. John Movius FEEFHS Webmaster Austria never, ever had any part of modern-day Lithuania; however, prior to 1795 the Commonwealth of Poland contained two merged states - the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania there were nations consisting of people who spoke Belarusian, modern-day Lithuanian or Ukrainian. Sometimes these folks - to distinguish themselves from Poles claimed their citizenship to be "Lithuanian" and themselves to be "Lithuanian." This designation seldom had to do with the language or religion spoken/practiced at home. Even today there are place names in Belarus and Ukraine which identify the area as having once been under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. So, your mother's ancestry could have been from the present-day Republic of Belarus; but more likely, your mother's ancestors came from an area of Western Ukraine which eventually (under several partitions of the Commonwealth of Poland) came under Autro-Hungarian rule. Simple? ;_) -- 1. To reach me take out the tildes (~) in the email address. 2. "It is bad luck to be superstitious." - via Wordsmith 3. A Belarusian in America <http://www.netcom.com/~homan/bielarus.html>