Thank you Fred. I did not think to search for a unas ending. VAICELIUNAS !!! There are listings in the Lithuanian telephone directory. Now the researcher has at least that much. You are a jewel. I checked Polish anusz and had not luck. No matter what I tried I could find anything similar. Maybe he will find records, which will give him a place name to search. This is the Lithuanian online telephone directory, which I used when trying to help. http://telefonai.zebra.lt/index.php?language=english Tina On 10/7/07, Fred Hoffman <wmfhoffman@sbcglobal.net> wrote: > > Hi, > > John Windle <johnwindle@btinternet.com> asked: > > > Has anyone heard of a Russian or maybe Polish > > surname, > > VAUCHGLANUS or VOUCHYLANUS. I am searching > > for info on this family who moved from Russia to > > Liverpool > > around 1880. In some records the name was > > shortened to Vouch. > > Neither of those names looks or sounds remotely > Polish or Russian. My best guess would be > Lithuanian, because Lithuanian surnames often end > in -ANIS, -ONYS, -ANUS, etc. And as others have > remarked, Lithuania was part of the Russian Empire > from roughly 1772 to the end of World War I. So a > Lithuanian would be categorized as a Russian, > officially speaking. (Historically Lithuania and > Poland were long joined as a single nation; and > between World Wars I and II much of Lithuania was > ruled by Poland. That could explain how Polish > became part of the mix.) > > If you put a gun to my head and made me guess at > the original name, I'd guess something along the > lines of VAICELIUNAS (with a little v mark over > the C), which would sound kind of like > "vi-chell-OO-nass." That's a very rough indication > of what it would sound like -- talk to a > Lithuanian to hear what it really sounds like. My > point is that VAICELIUNAS is a moderately common > name among Lithuanians, and it could easily be > misspelled by someone who wasn't familiar with the > name. Also, Lithuanian A often equates to O in > Russian, and all official documents had to be in > Russian, with names usually written phonetically > in the Cyrillic alphabet. It wouldn't be odd for > VAICELIUNAS to be transliterated into Cyrillic > characters that equate to VOICHILUNAS. Then when > someone unfamiliar with Lithuanian tried to render > that in our alphabet, VOUCHYLANUS could easily be > the result. > > I can't guarantee that this is right, but I've run > into plenty of similar cases. You have to realize, > you're talking about 1) Lithuanian names 2) being > Russified and rendered in Cyrillic, and then 3) > being spelled out in Roman letters, and then 4) > being massacred further by people who were totally > unfamiliar with Russian and Lithuanian. So the Y > of handwritten VOUCHYLANUS could be misread as a > G, and the O's misread as A. It's that kind of > process that could account for where VAUCHGLANUS > came from. > > I know that's a lot of if's and maybe's -- but > surnames were mutilated all the time, and often > there's no way to reconstruct the original from > the mangled version with any certainty. All I'm > saying is, the name forms you mention sound like > mutilated Lithuanian to me, and that's plausible > because Lithuania was officially part of Russia at > the time. The original name might have been > something like VAICELIUNAS. Or it might not. > Proving it, one way or the other, is the tough > part. But at least these remarks might give you a > little more to work with. > > Fred Hoffman > Author, _Polish Surnames: Origins & Meanings_ > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > POLANDBORDERSURNAMES-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >