Lithuania Gazetteers

Skaitmeninis bažnyčių žemėlapis (Digital Map of Churches)
Skaitmeninis bažnyčių žemėlapis (Digital map of churches) is a good way to locate parishes nearby your ancestor's town, and to see which churches have online records available. Follow the directions below to use the site. To locate nearby parishes:
 * Click on Skaitmeninis bažnyčių žemėlapis (Digital map of churches)


 * Click on the first tab, Lithuanian Churches (Lietuvos bažnyčios)
 * Type in the name of the town in the search box located in the upper left hand corner. You do not need to type using special characters. As you type, options will start to auto-populate in the drop-down box. Options will be listed by category: Bažnyčios (Church), Parapijos (Parish), Dekanti (Deanery) or Kita (Other).
 * If the town shows up under the Parapijos (Parish) category, this means that there is a Roman Catholic parish within the town itself.
 * If there is not a parish in the town itself, it may show up under the category Kita (Other). In this case, click on the name of the town to see it on a map. Use the green parish markers and deanery boundaries (teal lines) to help you determine which parishes are closest to your town.

To see what records are available online:
 * Click on the third tab, Search by sources of church metrics (Paieška pagal bažnytininų metrikų šaltinius)
 * On the map, places with the red church symbol have known sources online. Places with the gray church symbols do not have records online.
 * Click on the red church icon for a town, and it will link to a list of available online records and where they are found. The list can be two pages with the first page quite blank, and the info you need on the second page. An arrow ">" on the far right takes you to the second page.
 * On the second page is a list of "Related records". To the far right, the arrow ">" leads to a description page of the record.
 * On the description page "More info" takes you to images of the actual records.

Other Resources
Hofmann, Harry v. Baltische Postorte 1632-1917/8 [Baltic Postal Places]. Hamburg, 1996. (Book 947.9 E8h 1996). Identifies postal offices for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by their Russian and native names.

Gazetteer of Lithuania: Names approved by the United States Board on Geographic Names. Washington D.C. : Defense Mapping Agency, 1994. (Book 947.93 E5g). Modern gazetteer.

Lietuvos katalikų bažnyčios [Lithuanian Catholic parishes]. Vilnius: Pradai, 1993. 623 pages. (Book-947.5 E7k). Identifies parish and parish histories for Lithuania. The text is in Lithuanian. It includes a locality index.

Lietuvių kalbos išteklių informacinė sistema [Lithuanian Language Resource Information System]. Website in Lithuanian. Database of Historical Place Names etc.

Lithuania was created from three imperial provinces: Vilno, Kovno, Suwalki. Gazetteers were published for all of these but two are only available in the FHL.

For Kovno province. Alfavitnyi spisok naselennykh mest Kovenskoi gubernii. [Alphabetical list of populated places of the Kovno Province] Kovna, 1903. (Film 2,268,932 Item 1)

For Vilno province see Belarus Gazetteers.

Lithuania Maps aat the University of Texas.

Maps 4 U

Lithuanian Maps

Lithuanian Genealogy Gazeteer