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Hi Phil,

Plutiškės, Ąžuolų Būda, and Veiveriai are all places about 12 or 15 miles southwest of Kaunas. My family lived about 30 miles due west of Plutiškės right on the border of Lithuania and the Russian Exclave of Kaliningrad. At the time our families were going to Scotland, Kaliningrad was East Prussia.

You can see a map of pre-WW1 Lithuania on my blog-site at:

http://www.craig-galt.info/maps/lithuania-pre-ww1-map/

My guess is that your place names are just within the old province of Suvalki. It is possible that our Simanavičius people are related, but there's nothing connecting them from the names and places we have. Stanley Drive in Bellshill is about a kilometre north of where my family lived (1902–1911) in Glebe Street.

Many thanks for the information on your family. I'll keep them referenced in case one day something turns up that connects them to mine. You never know what might turn up!

Best wishes

Andrew, you have expressed the times very well in your post, and there is little I could add. The issues were, as you say, sensitive, and my family was deeply affected, and divided, by the politics of the time. I still live with the pain of my mother’s split with her parents, but history is what it is and we must examine the past without partisanship or emotion.

Yes, the Lanarkshire mining communities were hotbeds of radical socialism and communism at that time, and with war looming and revolutions in Russia, the miners of Bellshill and Bothwellhaugh were living in electrifying times. My Lithuanian family seem to have arrived in Scotland to avoid conscription in the Tsar’s Russian army, but the 1905 and 1917 Russian revolutions would undoubtedly have added gunpowder to Lithuanian national ambitions. The Lithuanian migrants to Lanarkshire were certainly not welcomed by the mining unions at the time, as you say, and even Keir Hardie railed against them. These Lithuanians were technically “Russian Poles”, and that is how my family are registered in the 1911 census.

My grandmother married George Brown McKay, one of the foundation members of the Communist Party in Scotland. He was one of only six British Communists to be invited to Moscow in 1955 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1905 revolution. I still have a ‘Soviet-style’ paper weight he sent to me (in Australia, I was 6) as a souvenir. George died in Romania in 1974 while on a holiday paid for by the Communist Party – his will left almost everything, including a house, to the Party. Although I have little empathy for my grandfather’s politics, I have a curious ‘pride’ (well, grudging respect, anyway) in his achievements as a poor, working-class man who lived his life by his convictions.

Andrew has summed up the Lithuanian experience in Lanarkshire very well, but for those looking for a more detailed story, you could do worse than read Murdoch Rodgers’ 1985 article entitled “The Lithuanians” at the History Today website:

http://www.historytoday.com/murdoch-rodgers/lithuanians

Yes, Lithuanian children often wore shirts with large collars.

My "Lithuanian" family lived in Bellshill and Bothwellhaugh from about 1902 to 1941. The family name was Sugzda (with marriages to the McKay, Wallace and McCaskill families). Eventually, they mostly moved off to New Jersey or Queensland.

My mother was born at 2 Store Place, Bothwellhaugh (just above the pool room); my g-grandparents both died at Park Place (near the footbridge) – my g-grandmum in 1930, and g-grandpa in 1941.

The family came to Lanarkshire shortly after the birth of my grandmother in 1901. They had lived in Lauckaimis, a tiny hamlet right on the border with modern Kaliningrad.

Karl Craig
Brisbane, Australia

I know this thread is very old, but here's a story about one of my wife's ancestors that helps fill out some information about the 72nd:

Walter Ferguson of Old Cumnock, Ayrshire:

Walter joined the Lord Elgin Fencibles on 1 November 1799 at Cumnock in Ayrshire and became a private in 72nd Regiment of Foot on 4 July 1800 at Newry, County Down, Ireland. The fencibles were local militia who were recruited for home service, but not overseas service. These Highland militia groups were generally disbanded around 1799, and the Lord Elgin Fencibles were mostly recruited into the 72nd.  Walter enlisted while aged 24 and was discharged with the rank of serjeant (the way foot regiments spelled ‘sergeant’) on 9 November 1819 when he was closer to 46 than the 43 recorded on his service record.

Walter’s wife, Anne Phillips (born in Cork, Ireland), also travelled with the regiment throughout his service. While we have no record of their marriage, it is likely they married while he was on active service in Ireland with the regiment in 1798–1806. While in Ireland, his first four children were born: Catherine in 1798/9; James in 1800/1; Margaret 1801/2; and Elizabeth 1803/4 – all of these died at two years or younger.

Walter and Anne went with the regiment when it captured the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) from the Dutch in 1806. It was during this campaign that his first two children to survive to adulthood were born: Janet in 1806, and William in 1808 (Janet died in 1829 in Cumnock aged 23).  Walter was made corporal on Christmas Day 1807, but was further promoted to serjeant on 25 June 1809.

The 72nd was next in action against the French during the Napoleonic Wars. The regiment helped capture Mauritius (Île de France) in November 1810, and the 72nd remained on as garrison troops in Port Louis until around June 1814. We know that his children Catherine (1811) and Walter (1815) were both born in Mauritius. The army registered this as service in the East Indies.

The regiment was known to have moved to Calcutta, India in 1815, and this is probably where he was during the period September 1815 and February 1816. His whereabouts from June 1814 to September 1815 are unknown, but the 72nd had returned to the Cape of Good Hope by 1816 as part of the Cape Province Garrison, and was soon involved in the Kaffir Wars of 1818–1819. During this period, his daughter Elizabeth (1816) and last child Thomas (1818) were born.

Walter, whose service was described as “very good”, was discharged from the army on 9 November 1819 after becoming a “supernumerary”. He incurred a disabling injury to his right hand while working with the Engineers.  He returned to Cumnock in Ayrshire – along with Anne, Janet, William, Walter, Elizabeth and Thomas. Walter had 20 years service with the 72nd and, with his injury on duty, he was entitled to an army stipend as a Chelsea Out-Pensioner.