Sydney Lithuanians, 1914

This photo (courtesy of Metraštis No. 1, p14) is captioned 'a group of early Lithuanians on a picnic':

The same photo was reproduced in Luda Popenhagen's Australian Lithuanians and titled 'Lithuanian Australians picknicking in Sydney c. 1914, holding Lietuva, the American Lithuanian newspaper which published articles about Lithuanian migrants in Australia'.

We know that John Wedrien (Jonas Vedrinaitis) and Alexander (Ksaveras) Skierys had written an article to Lietuva, which was published on 16 April 1915; see the posts of 5 March and 12 March 2015 for their stories, and that of 14 June 2019 for more about the article they wrote.

I'm confident the man on the far left of the photo is John Wedrien and that the man sitting in the front row (looking down) is Alexander Skierys.

It would be great to identify the ladies and the other two men in this photo.

Perhaps one of the other men was Jonas Mickevičius (known as John McCowage in Sydney)?

Metraštis No 1 (p8) recounts a few elements of Mickevičius' story as told by John Wedrien:

• he arrived in 1887 from the UK with his wife and one child, together with two other Lithuanian men.  The two other men soon returned to London;

• his wife, who according to Vedrinaitis was the first Lithuanian woman to have set foot on Australia, died after 10 years here;

• Jonas had met no other Lithuanians in Australia until a chance encounter with Vedrinaitis at a Sydney market in 1913 or 1914;

• he operated a greengrocer's shop.

Other Lithuanians who were living in Sydney at that time included:

• Jonas Balaika;
• Aleksandras Daukantas;
• Antanas Juknaitis;
• Petras (Peter) Kairaitis and his brother Vincas (Bill) Kairaitis;
• Petras Kazlauskas;
• Pranas Maciunas (Franc Matzonas); and
• Stasys Urniežius (Stanislaus Urniarz)

What's in a name?

When I was growing up in Adelaide I was well aware that some Lithuanian DP families had shortened their surnames after arrival in Australia in order to make them easier to pronounce in a society and culture dominated by English speakers. For example:

• Stasiškis became Statkus;
• Vasiliauskas became Vaskas;
• Venslovavičius became Vens.

First name simplifications (Antanas to Anton, Pranas to Frank, etc) were even more common. I went through the Australian educational system being known as John rather than Jonas. It was only later that I realised there was also an economic dimension to such name changes; your competitiveness in the jobs marketplace is improved if you have a more local-sounding name.

What was also clear was the fact that many families chose not to dilute their identity and used their 'difficult' Lithuanian names in both the confines of the Lithuanian community and in wider society.

Early Lithuanians and name changes

As with the DPs, many of their predecessors also chose to simplify or anglicise their names. Some did so in Australia, others while they were resident in Britain, North America or elsewhere before arrival in Australia:

Kazys (Key) and Jadvyga Brazauskas (Braz), Sydney
 (source: Metrastis No. 1)

• Stasys Žygas became Stanley Zygas;
• Aisikas Segalis became Isaac Segal; and
• Kazys Brazauskas became Key Braz.

However, the pattern of name changes for early Lithuanians seems broader. There was likely more pressure on them to assimilate or disguise their cultural identity:

• Jonas Vedrinaitis became John Wedrien;
• Zigmas Baltrušaitis became Sid Bolt.

Jonas Vedrinaitis/John Wedrien, Sydney
(source: Metrastis No.1)

Others made more wholesale changes:

• Jonas Zeleniakas became John Green;
• Kazys Astrauskas became Charles Ashe;
• Juozas Plaušinis became Joe Miller;
• Zale Zapolski became Levi Zalman;
• Lozoraitis became Brown, Petraitis became Patrick, Ruzga became Ross.

Further complications for the amateur historian arise when people are known by or use several variations of a surname, for example:

• Piliulis/Paliulis/Phillules;
• Mikėnas/Makeness/Mekenass;
• Čepkauskas/Capouski/Cepkouski.

Also, even without simplified or anglicised names, some people alternated their names depending on the cultural context they were in:

• Max Lipschus (a german name) from Memel/Klaipeda was known to the Lithuanian community as Maksas Lipšius;
• Stanislaus Urniarz (a polish name) from Vilnius was known as Stasys Urniežius.