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I am having trouble with determining the correct surname spelling for my grandfather. On almost every document, including those from Churches, the names have been spelled different. Examples: Mike Versieckis, Mateus Varsackas, Michael Matthew (Matus) Varsackas, Wersieckis, Verseckas, Varsoki, Versocky, Atari, and so on. On each document, I have determined by the extraneous information given that matches my ancestor, that each person is my grandfather.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can tell which surname is correctly spelled?

How would I contact anyone from Vilnius, Lithuania without the correct spelling?

I have deepened my research in Ancestry DNA matches. There are hundreds of matches from 4th - 8th generation, but no matches as1st - 3rd generations. These are on my father's side of the family. On my mothers side, Robinson, I have found literally thousands of close matches.

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    If it makes you feel any better; my mother-in-law's grandparents names were spelled seven different ways on seven different voting lists in Manitoba. (So, the same agency, re-verifying names from an existing list, got a different spelling every single time) – Marshall Clow Aug 28 at 20:44
  • There was a similar question (genealogy.stackexchange.com/questions/14443/…) that might help you? – nebulon42 Aug 29 at 18:15
  • The closest match I was able to find was in scribd.com/doc/53134621/… and was "Vasaukas". – nebulon42 Aug 29 at 18:29
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    Your question seems written to assume that there was a single "correct" spelling of your grandfather's surname during his whole life, but that's probably not true. For instance, depending on who was in control of a place, they tended to record names in ways that fit with their language; you can see this in surnames which have been changed to look more "Lithuanian" in some eras. Surnames were probably also re-spelled to sound more Polish or Russian at various places/times. Your grandfather may have been comfortable with such changes and considered more than one as "correct". – aem Aug 29 at 19:36

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