EWZ & More: Over 10K Non-Church Records Added to IAGL Database
The IAGL’s free online searchable database first launched in December of 2020 featuring indexed Lutheran church records from southwest Lithuania such as births, marriages, confirmations, and deaths. Since then, the database has grown as our volunteer transcribers work hard to index these church records. However, there have also been efforts to index and transcribe over 10,000 non-church records that are relevant to those researching their German roots in southwest Lithuania. The IAGL is now happy to announce that this initial batch of records has now been added to the IAGL online database with more to come in the future.
Database Now Capable of Handling Non-Church Records
Donations received by generous supporters of the IAGL have enabled us to hire a developer who adapted our online database (originally created solely for church records) to accommodate non-church records. This now opens the opportunity for our volunteer transcribers to index a wide variety of record types such as documents from the EWZ, newspapers, obituaries, and various other publications.
Thousands of Records from the Einwandererzentralstelle (EWZ) Added
The IAGL received permission from the Bundesarchiv in Berlin to index thousands of EWZ records that the archive has digitized and previously made available on their online records management system, Invenio, and the IAGL has also agreed to share its transcriptions and indexes to the Bundesarchiv for their own use. Although only a small part of the EWZ records from the Bundesarchiv online has been indexed, the IAGL hopes to continue to work with the Bundesarchiv to index records and make them available through the IAGL’s online database as we continue to uncover more and more records relevant to the Deutsche aus Litauen (Germans from Lithuania) in their collections.
Additionally, a large number of EWZ Stamblätter (family tree) records that are digitized at FamilySearch.org and indexed by the IAGL have also been added with more expected in the future.
Lists of Church Fund Contributors from the 1830’s - 1850’s Added
We have also indexed several years of lists containing names of individuals who provided funds to the building of the churches in Wischtiten, Wizajny, and Wirballen starting in the late 1830’s and into the 1850’s. Additional locations are also planned for indexing.
Name Indexes from the Heimatstimme and Heimatgruß
The IAGL has created name indexes from donated copies of Heimatstimme and Heimatgruß–both publications from the now-defunct Landsmannschaft der Deutsche aus Litauen which was based in Germany for over 50 years. This is only a fraction of the records the IAGL plans to index from these two publications.
1938 Lithuanian Secret Police List
The IAGL has also received permission from the former Landsmannschaft der Deutsche aus Litauen in Germany to include the name index created by the now-defunct organization of the 1938 Lithuanian Secret Police List–a list created by the Lithuanian government in 1938 to track and investigate the ‘loyalty’ of Germans living in Lithuania–in the IAGL’s online database. These lists are currently being transcribed by our volunteers.
To see the inventory in the IAGL’s database, visit our Inventory page.
Donations Help to Support These Efforts
Since the IAGL is a not-for-profit run by volunteers, the above efforts and plans for the future, are not possible without the generous financial support of our donors. Consider donating today.