This is the second in a series of three posts about researching Lithuanians in the Chicago area, where many of them settled after immigrating to the United States. (Here is the first post, and here is the third post.)
I created a mapping tool to help people with Lithuanian ancestors who settled in Chicago before 1915-1925 to find Catholic Church records (baptisms, marriages, and deaths) in that area. The tool uses Google's My Maps feature, and can help you find the nearest Catholic Church (serving predominantly Lithuanians) to a given address. Here's a link to it: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1ptiPg9tl9szvKo-q7MItfQGRahkkMzd6&usp=sharing
For this example, I'm looking for the church where two of my relatives married - Juozapas (Joseph) Guokas (my second cousin thrice removed) and Petronėlė Šukytė (Petronella Sukys). I had an address for Joseph from his 1904 naturalization index card, so I started by entering that address.* When you start to type it in, Google will make suggestions, and in this case the first one was correct.
Once you hit enter, a pin will be dropped at the address location. Then, you can zoom outward on the map to find the nearest church icon - in this case, it was really close (see the red arrow).
Click on the church icon, and it will bring up some information about the church - its address, current use (some are no longer Catholic churches; some have been demolished), and links to a 1920 book that often has pictures and history of the church. There's more information too - we'll get to that in a bit.
Immigrants often moved around a lot, especially in their early years in the United States, and I had another address for Joseph, this one from a 1911 directory. (I've been unable to find him on the 1910 Census). When I entered this one, I could see right away that the closest church was the same - All Saints on S. State Street.
Clicking on the church icon again, and this time scrolling down a bit, you'll see that I have also included a link to the church records available (free) on FamilySearch.
Clicking on the link for All Saints brings you to the page pictured below. Some -not all - of the Archdiocese of Chicago Catholic Church records are indexed (searchable) there, and some (not all) are indexed and available at FindMyPast. All Saints' records are not indexed (yet) in either place. However, often there is an internal index available. That's the case here, so I clicked on the link for "Marriages, 1906-1925 with index."
This brings up the first image in the record set. Since I want to jump around a little bit, rather than scroll through page by page, I click on the View Grid icon.
This brings up small images of each page in the record set. If you click on the image below to view it larger, you can tell that the first 3+ rows have the index pages in them. I'll make an educated guess as to which one has the surnames beginning with G (the groom's name is almost always the only one indexed), and then scroll backwards or forwards as needed to get to it.
So here is the top half of the page with surnames beginning with G. While none of the names are exactly what I'm looking for, the third one on the left, Juozas Goks, looks closest to Guokas. (The other name I marked, Stanislaus Gokas, turned out to be Joseph's brother). Keep in mind that surnames will often be misspelled, and that first names are often in Latin form (although in this case, it's Lithuanian).
Although the "Pagina" (Latin for page) would seem to indicate that Joseph's record is on page 28, in this case, 28 is a record number. And here is the marriage record for Joseph and Petronella - below, I have combined an image of the top of the page with their record, which actually appears at the bottom of the page. (Click on the image to view it larger.)
These Catholic Church marriage records will always have, at a minimum, the names of the bride and groom (including the bride's maiden name), the date of the marriage, and the officiant. Sometimes there is other useful information. In this case, we have the bride's and groom's ages (which can help you narrow down the year of birth), the names of both of their parents (including their mothers' maiden names), and the names of the witnesses, who are often relatives. As mentioned earlier, Stanislaus Goks (Stanislovas Guokas) is Joseph's brother. Petronella's grandmother was a Banaitis, so witness Justinus Banaitis is probably related to her. Sometimes you are lucky and even get the name of the places where the bride and groom were baptized.
If you don't find the people you're looking for at the nearest Lithuanian Catholic Church, try zooming out more on the map to find the next closest one. Pay attention to the year the church opened - the event you're looking for may have happened at an older Lithuanian church nearby. It's also possible the event occurred at a parish that was not primarily Lithuanian. You might try Chicago Ancestors, a good mapping tool from the Newberry Library to find churches and other points of interest near a particular address.
Also, keep in mind that the Chicago Archdiocese has only made records available through 1925 - and, in cases of churches that were still open when these records were originally microfilmed, only through 1915.
* Check the "Location Links" tab here on my blog for other useful Chicago and Lithuanian research links. I used the "Street name changes" link in the "Chicago - Maps, Streets, & Property" section there to find the current street name for Joseph's 1904 address - it had changed from Curtis in 1904 to Edbrooke today.
I hope you find this map helpful. Please send me an e-mail (use the link at the end of this post) or comment if you find any broken links in the map.
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