The Mystery Man

Most of my research in the last 6 months has been reexamining my family tree information for my Great Grandfather Peter Jamitis in my paternal line. Peter was Lithuanian, though at times the historic records show him as Russian, Russian-Polander, Russian-Lithuanian and Prussian.  I've determined this is due to the regime his birth home was ruled by when he answered the question of nationality on census forms, draft records or his marriage application. Lithuania had several border changes during his lifetime.

There's also issues with surname spellings.  I've seen Zamitis, Zemaitis, Gemaitis, Zamitus, Zimits...you get the idea. Jamitis is the only spelling I knew until I started my family tree. This issue alone made the research process lengthy within the United States record repositories.  Image this Lithuanian answering port authority's questions to board the ship for America and a census-taker's ears hearing this new language probably for the first time.  Phonetic spelling of surnames was most likely the option taken in this instance.

Peter is a mystery from the time he was born in 1870 until I find him in Pennsylvania in 1899 applying for a license to marry Anna Ambrosavage, also a Lithuanian who immigrated to the United States. And don't let Anna's surname spelling comfort you... that's another post.

I see him with Anna and their first born in the 1900 census and the next three censuses through 1930. Each census adds more children and more conflicting information, mainly event dates. Naturalization records have escaped me even with 1903 recorded as the year this citizenship event happened.  I was so hoping to find the petition or the application for Peter for there is much to mine from these records, opening the gate to finding his place of birth in Eastern Europe.

My next step is to visit the courthouse and search for wills, deeds, land records and the like. It will be my first time researching physical records and it's a fact that visits to your ancestor's county seat can unblock the the wall when online indexes and documents are fruitless.  Perhaps starting with the physical records was the best plan for Peter.  In hindsight, yes. But the enormous amount of online records available to genealogists the last several years is hard to resist from the comfort of your own home.