Hello! Sorry for bother with this situation but I need help from this community.
Let me begin with a little explanation: I am from [Uruguay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguay), but my great-grandmother was lithuanian. Her name was Albina Ragauskaitė and she came to my country on 1930. She met my great-grandfather here and started a family. I didn’t met them — I’m 24 years old, and both of them died many years before I was born, but we joined the local lithuanian civil association until I was fourteen years old. Unfortunately, some members left or moved out to Lithuania and the civil group disbanded. I totally lost touch with them and we don’t have any lithuanian embassy here.
I’m planning to get the lithuanian citizenship. By law, I’m the last family member that can get it. I’m trying to get all the documentation required and, even If I have most of them, I’m missing a birth certificate or complete passport copy (or anything, at this point) that can “prove” the Lithuanian origins of my great-grandmother. Luckily I have the marriage certificate and a uncompleted copy of her passport (scanned document that have only 9 of 32 pages) that shows the uruguayan Visa. And that’s it.
I don’t have any clue if there’s any government department, ministry or civil association that could help me track or find more documentation, or at least some registry or archives. I am not familiar with Lithuanian government/political system.
​
This is not about the citizenship only. I want and need to know more about her, know more about her, even if it’s through some papers. I want to know more about my great-grandfather (which I don’t even have any document) Jose Grinius (officially he’s *Jose* in the marriage certificate, but I suspect his name actually is Joseph or Juozas).
I will be really grateful if someone could point me in the correct direction. I’m not expecting too much, only if this kind of questions could be asked to Migration Department or something like that. Thank you *so* much!
4 comments
Lived in Uruguay for a few years. Have you tried to contact ACUL (Asociacion Cultural Uruguay Lituania)? They are in Calle Rio de Janeiro 4001 in the Cerro neighborhood of Montevideo. They have a Facebook page and there is also a Facebook group called Lituanos en Uruguay where most of the Uruguayans of Lithuanian descent I know (and many of the members of ACUL) are active. They should be able to help get you started on the search for into about your family members.
When the Lithuanian Consulate in Sao Paulo does a Consular Mission, they go to ACUL.
There is also an honorary consul there, but I think the only time she does Consular stuff these days is when the folks come from Brazil.
I would contact the people at ACUL or the Lituanos en Uruguay fb group and ask then for help.
If your great grandparents lived in Kaunas city(1918-1940), the regional archive of Kaunas has a vast selection of original passport cards of Kaunas interwar residents. If not, rest of Lithuania’s resident passports are located at the central archive (Vilnius). Thats your best bet to find anything related to passports, but even than there are a lot missing.
Write an email to https://www.archyvai.lt/en/archives/historicalarchives.html and ask for a copy of her external passport.
The San Paulo Konsulatas covers all of South America, once a year they go on missions in the surrounding countries, keep an eye on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LietuvosgeneraliniskonsulatasSanPaule/
Jose most likely was Juozas.
There’s a bunch of genealogy groups on Facebook if you wanna research your family history further. A lot of records are available online, but Lithuania only publish records that are older than 100 years.
As I see that your great grandparents came from Panevėžys, you might want to contact the local bishop ([https://www.paneveziovyskupija.lt/](https://www.paneveziovyskupija.lt/)), they have records of all birth certificates and christenings (if your great grandmother was catholic ofc).