Lithuania-Unique Aspects of Family Tree Documentation
In general, the pre-1918 sacramental registers of Lithuanian Roman Catholic churches (RCCs) were not in the Lithuanian language, and the names of Lithuanian towns and villages were converted to their Polish-language names before entering them into the RCC registers. For example, the Lithuanian town of "Tverečius" would typically have been entered in the Polonized form "Twerecz" in Latin-language and Polish-language registers, and as "Тверечъ" in Russian-language registers, where "Тверечъ" is the Cyrillic-transliterated form of "Twerecz". [There are also a few instances in RCC registers where Latin-language place names were entered in Latin-language registers.] When translating register entries, Lithuanian genealogists attempt to reverse the original conversion process; they typically convert the place names back into their Lithuanian-language names, but they use the modern (present-day) spellings of these place names.