Finding an immigrant ancestor's origin from Lithuania?

Question

I realize that surnames varies on documents due to the recorder's hearing the name. That has presented me with a great challenge trying to find information about my grandfather. Here are the different variations, so far: Verseckas, Verseckes, Versieckis, Varsoke, Varsoky, Versiackis, Varsockas. Each of my grandparent's four sons birth certificates had a different spelling for their last name.

I do know that my grandfather was from Lithuania. I would like to find out from where in Lithuania. I also know he came to the US sometime between 1905-1913. I haven't been able to discover any documentation (Ellis Island/Massachusetts/Canada entry points) for him.

He disappeared in 1931 after my grandmother died and no one has seen him since. Does anybody have any ideas of how I might find out where he actually came from in Lithuania? As of now, I don't even know what my maiden name actually is.

Answer 1

The most likely places to see a location (town) for an immigrant to US would include records such as:

• Immigration records (more so at later dates)
• Naturalization records (after 1906)
• Newspaper records (patchy, but sometimes origins are mentioned in obituaries)
• Military records (WWI and WWII records for men sometimes list birth town)
• Local history books (particularly for rural areas or small towns)

Where spelling is highly variant, it can be worth focusing on records for a specific area. I can see that in 1920 they had a child in Norwood, Massachusetts, so I found a index to declarations of intention for Norfolk County, and found this:

Mithou? Versackas, box maker, resident Walpole aged 30, in 1927 (VOl XI Page 55)

The original image shows him as Mithous Versackas, born 25 December 1896 in Vilmo or Vilnio, which was also his last residence. His wife, Albina, was also born there but now resided in Pemberton Street, Walpole with him. He sailed from Hamburg, and arrived in New York about 14 July 1913, although he did not recall the name of the ship.

Given the wife's name, and the location, I think this is indeed your "Mike". I cannot see a petition for naturalisation in the same location. He needed to wait three years after the declaration of intent to petition for naturalisation, so given the timing perhaps he moved on before he put in his petition.

This does now give us the information to try and locate him in the shipping lists. We need a ship that sailed from Hamburg (a popular leaving port for immigrants from Europe), to New York, arriving about July 14, 1913.

For this I used the excellent search facilities provided by stevemorse.org . The closest match arriving at about this time is this man on the President Lincoln, which arrived July 16, 1913, from Hamburg: Mateusas Wersackas, aged 18, last residence Wargaklina (sp?), next of kin at home father, Juozas Wersackas of Wargaklina, heading to Amsterdam, NY, where he had an aunt, Paulina Karcauskas.

He was travelling with a young cousin, Wladas, son of Paulina.