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On my grandfather's naturalization papers, birthplace is listed as Pogena, Russia. It may be located in Lithuania.

His name is Julius Albert Knoll.

I am also looking for my grandmother's birthplace. Her name is Emily Haak Knoll.

One naturalization paper for her husband lists Poland, Russia as her birthplace.

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    One place you could check is the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad which is between Poland and Lithuania. I don't see a Pogena there but given the movement of the borders over the last hundred or so years it could be a place to start looking.
    – Chenmunka
    May 8, 2017 at 7:47
  • Welcome to G&FH SE! As a new user be sure to take the Tour to learn about our focussed Q&A format which is quite different from bulletin boards, discussion forums and other Q&A sites you may be used to. Please try to ask a single focussed question rather than a question about each of your two grandparents. You can always ask about Emily's birthplace separately.
    – PolyGeo ♦
    May 14, 2017 at 3:03
  • I was able to locate Pogena by going back and finding old maps and finding name changes.
    – Michele Knoll
    May 16, 2017 at 0:52
  • @Michele Knoll it is very interesting where did you find this town...
    – GEORG GAAL
    Jun 15, 2017 at 13:28
  • Yes, it's very interesting to know where you found Pogena. I live in Kaliningrad, and know a couple of local history communities, maybe they will be able to help with your research.
    – Nick Kharchenko
    Jun 20, 2017 at 12:43

2 Answers 2

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A good place to start when looking for people from Russia and adjacent countries is Jewish Gen. This link will take you directly to pages on Lithuania.

http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/#Lithuania

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    Hi Mike, welcome! What did you find for Pogena on that site? You can add details to your answer to make it more useful using the edit button right below your post.
    – Harry V. ♦
    Jun 14, 2017 at 16:40
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I was able to find Knoll surname in Estonian parish records. As you know Lithuania is not far away from Estonia, so mentioned Knoll's can be relatives. The chances are great because it is not common surname Also Estonia was the part of Russian Empire for a long time and the moment you mentioned and sometimes Estonian citys' and towns' names are very curios (for example, they can contain specific letters like õ which can't be transcribed to English well)

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  • Knoll is a fairly common German surname so the chance those are his relatives are actually very low.
    – Bregalad
    Jun 15, 2017 at 9:54
  • @Bregalad, I can't argue with you :-) Maybe (and I am sure) that you are right regarding Germany...
    – GEORG GAAL
    Jun 19, 2017 at 6:10

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