ZIGMAS ZINKEVIČIUS

Research areas: Baltic studies, the history of the Lithuanian language, dialectology, onomastics.

LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF ANTHROPONYMS AND THE ACTUAL HISTORY OF PERSONAL NAMES

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Researchers of names constantly encounter this problem. In this article, I will try to discuss it by drawing on my long experience in researching Lithuanian anthroponymy. I have the most extensive data on my own surnames and those of my relatives, so these will be discussed most often.

Zinkevičius. Linguistic analysis of this surname shows that it was once a patronymic, originating from the vernacular variant of the baptismal name Zenonas (Greek Zeus, genitive Zēnos ‘Zeus’): a shortened form with the suffix k, whose stem was Zen-k-. It came through the East Slavs from Byzantium and therefore became Zin-k- (Greek ē > in Byzantine Greek, ī, and i in Slavic). Cf. the variant of the same surname Zenkēvičius, with the stem Zen-k-, received from the West, from Rome, via the Germans, Czechs, and Poles. Surnames of the same origin derived from shortened forms without the suffix k include Zinas, Zinius, Zin-iūkas, etc. (indicating transmission from the East), and Zēnas, Zēnius, etc. (indicating transmission from the West).

The suffix -evičius is of East Slavic (not Polish!) origin; it was used in the chancery language of the old Lithuanian state (-evičь) to designate people, regardless of their nationality or origin. Later, when patronymics became surnames, this suffix lost its patronymic function and became an indicator of “nobility”¹. Today it no longer indicates anything and is a foreign element in Lithuanian anthroponymy.

It is impossible, without genealogical research, to establish the actual history of my surname—that is, to determine whether it is a direct continuation of a patronymic or whether its suffix -evičius was added later to make the surname “nobler.” However, I have managed to gather only a small amount of genealogical data.

¹ Plačiau apie šią priesagą ir pavardę Zinkevičius žr. Zinkevičius 2003: 124–126.

Įžvalgos / Insights

149

ZIGMAS ZINKEVIČIUS

According to the account of my father, Petras Zinkevičius, his ancestors came from “the Vilnius area” (Zinkevičius 1999: 8–12). However, this expression may refer not only to the environs of Vilnius, but also to an ancient administrative unit associated with Vilnius, such as the Diocese of Vilnius or even the Vilnius Voivodeship. Thus, the family’s place of origin is very imprecisely defined.

Judging from stories I heard from neighbors in childhood—that my grandfather Andrius did not know Polish, and that his wife, who came from an impoverished and Polonized noble family, had been unable to teach her husband even to cross himself in Polish—it would be hard to believe that his Lithuanian parents or grandparents had themselves “ennobled” their surname by adding a foreign suffix –evičius. Most likely, their surname originated from an inherited old patronymic, which could have derived from a baptismal name in any part of Lithuania. Only genealogical, not linguistic, research could help clarify the actual history of the surname. Such research, however, is difficult because the most important sources—baptismal and marriage registers, and estate inventories—are hard to access, having been scattered among various archives and institutions, and especially because the data they contain have not been systematized and comprehensive indexes are lacking. The difficulties of searching for surnames in written sources will be discussed later.

It is unclear when the Zinkevičiai moved to the environs of Ukmergė. They were certainly not here in the late eighteenth century, at least not in Juodáusiai, where they live now. This is shown by the 1765 and 1791 inventory records of the Juodausiai estate, in which the Zinkevičiai are not mentioned. They must therefore have arrived in the nineteenth century, since by the end of that century my grandfather Andrius was already working at the Juodausiai estate as an ordinarininkas (a higher-ranking farmhand). After the estate burned down, he was given a plot of land on the estate’s grounds, closest to Ukmergė. That is where I was born.

Changes to our surname were sometimes caused by chance. My uncle Stasys (my father’s brother) changed his surname from Zinkevičius to Zenkēvičius, mistakenly thinking it was dialectal, cf. penki > dial. pinki.

Žagelis. This is my paternal grandmother’s surname: Žagel-ýtė.

Linguistic analysis allows this surname to be derived from the ancient dithematic personal name Žā-gelas, with the first element Žā-, cf. Žā-baras, Žā-buras, Žā-labas, Žā-liudas, Žā-liumas, and so on (the element’s origin and antiquity are unclear), and the second element -gelas, cf. Bár-gelas, Daũ-gelas, Jaũ-gelas, Mìn-gelas, Nór-gelas, Vós-gelas, Žý-gelas, and others, as well as Gél-butas, Gél-gaudas, Gél-kantas, Gél-minas, Gél-vydas, and others, and the short forms and their derivatives Gelỹs, Gel-áitis, Gel-ónis. The element Gel- is associated with gélti ‘to hurt very much’; it was also found among the Prussians and should therefore be regarded as a distant inheritance from antiquity. The personal name Žagėlis could also be nickname-derived (though this is unlikely), cf. žãgas ‘cone, pile of firewood’.

The surname Žagėlis could also be interpreted as a dialectal form of Žiogėlis (even less likely), since in the dialect unstressed o is pronounced as a (cf. tvarėla ‘little fence’ alongside tvõra ‘fence’), while the soft ž may have hardened under the influence of Polish pronunciation (?). Cf. the surnames Žiog-ėlis ir Žiógas, Žiógis, Žiogỹs, Žiog-ūnas: žiógas.

150

Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXVI

Antroponimijos lingvistinė analizė ir reali asmenvardžių istorija

I managed to gather a fairly large amount of data pointing to the actual history of my grandmother’s surname, but not all of it is reliable; some of it is merely conjectural.

According to her own account and those of her neighbors, my grandmother Žagelytė, who worked as a stewardess at the Juodausiai estate before it burned down, came from near Kurkliai (a town about 30 km beyond Ukmergė), from the well-known noble Žageliai family, which had fallen on hard times over the years. In the past, members of this family were famous. One of them—Ignas Žagelis (his relationship to my grandmother is unclear), who wrote his name in Polish as Żagiel—was born in 1826 at the nearby Pavirinčiai estate and died in 1891. He was a renowned physician who traveled in African and Asian countries and lived for a long time in Egypt (as an oculist at the viceroy’s court!), and sailed up the Nile to its very source². Unfortunately, archival records concerning my grandmother’s ancestors remain unexamined, so not only genealogical information is lacking, but also information that might help clarify the origin of the surname.

Skapas. My mother’s maiden name: Skap-aitė.

Linguistic analysis allows this surname to be derived from ancient dithematic personal names such as the short form of Skā-paras, which had the first element Skā-, cf. Skā-buras, Skā-vydas, Skā-vitas (:?), and the second element -paras, cf. Daū-paras, Lium-paras, Ùž-paras and the like, and Pár-gaudas, Pár-skaudas, Pár-vainas, and others, as well as Parà, Par-ùlis, Par-eikà, and others (: the prefix and preposition par-?), with the initial consonant p-: Skā-paras. It coincided with the noun skāpas ‘castrated animal’. Nowadays people generally “etymologize” this surname in that way.

The personal name Skāpas and its variants Skapa, Skapis, Skapaitis were already in use in the sixteenth century and are found in written sources. In the past, this was a popular personal name, used not only in the environs of Ukmergė. It gave rise to many settlement names; cf. the town name Skāp-iškis. It even entered Belarusian, and perhaps Polish, cf. Belarusian Cron, Polish Skop, if their original source of spread was the former Baltic lands.

It is noteworthy that this personal name does not tend to give rise to surnames in derived (suffixed) forms. Apart from Skap-ìnskas and Skap-ėckas, which have acquired foreign suffixes, only one rare surname of patronymic origin is known: Skap-ónis. In general, the original, underived personal name Skāpas is used.

I managed to gather more data pointing to the actual history of my mother’s surname than to the corresponding history of the surname Zinkevìčius. The 1765 and 1791 inventory records of the Juodausiai estate show that several families called Skapais lived in Juodausiai in the late eighteenth century. My mother must have descended from one of those families (it is not known which; for more, see Zinkevičius 1999: 12–15). Perhaps the Skapai of Juodausiai will be found in even earlier written sources in the future, if such sources come to light. After all, this is an ancient, original (underived) personal name.

² Apie kitus žymesnius Žagelius žr. Zinkevičius 1999: 21.

Įžvalgos / Insights

151

ZIGMAS ZINKEVIČIUS

My grandfather Kazys Skapas’s sister Ona married Adomas (the name is uncertain) Balžekas. This is an interesting surname. It is stressed Balžėkas and Balžėkas, but not Balžėkas, although elsewhere in Lithuania there is also a surname of this form, with the suffix -ėkas added to the stem Balž-; cf. the surnames Balžis, Balžus, Balž-aitis, Balž-ūnas, Balž-inas (the stress patterns of all of them are unknown). The stem Balž- is related to balžas ‘sober, clear, blue’. In the surname Balžėkas, the suffix -ėkas, unusual in Lithuanian, instead of -ėkas, may have arisen from -ėkas under the influence of Polish pronunciation; cf. the settlement name Krikštėnai, which local people (the area had become Polonized) pronounced Krikštėnai. In that case, however, the stress variant Balžėkas with -ėkas would remain unexplained; the ė suggests a possible non-Lithuanian origin for the surname. It is reminiscent of French surnames; cf. Balžakas / Balžākas. Therefore, the possibility cannot be ruled out that the origin of this surname is connected with Napoleon’s campaign through Lithuania; it may have been introduced by a French soldier who remained in the Ukmergė area. Whether this hypothesis is correct should be revealed by studies of the surname’s and family’s actual history in written sources. Unfortunately, the genealogical data available do not go back to the Napoleonic era. Thus, the search for older records is essential.

My mother was related not only to the children of the aforementioned Balžekas, Petras and Vaclovas (they were her cousins), but also to the mother of his brother’s wife, the wife of the well-known beekeeping specialist habil. dr. Jonas Balžekas (his son is the well-known tennis coach Remigijus Balžėkas). This is what is known as kinship by marriage, or affinity³, which must be borne in mind and not confused with genealogical relationships.

Žeruolis. My maternal grandmother’s surname: Žeruol-ytė. Linguistic analysis of the surname Žeruõlis allows us to identify the stem Žer-; cf. the surnames Žėras, Žer-eikà, Žer-iolis (stress unknown; people also call them Žer-ùlis), Žer-õlis, Žer-õnas, Žer-skis (stress unknown), and those with the infix k: Žer-ka (stress unknown), Žer-k-áuskas. The stem Žer- most likely derives from the older Žėr-; cf. the surnames Žėrỹs, Žer-õnas, and others. In terms of origin, it could be connected with the words žėr-uóti, žėr-ėti and the like. In this surname, the stem Žėr- is extended by the suffix -uõlis, which is normally used to form agent nouns (nomina agentis) from verbs, e.g., pavyd-uõlis, skend-uõlis, žin-uõlis ‘one who knows a lot’. There is also the noun žėr-uõlis ‘one that glows’. Thus, Žeruõlis should be regarded as a nickname-derived surname. Its initial center of diffusion was around Ukmergė. This explains the change of the stem Žėr- into Žer-, since in the dialect unstressed long vowels became short, while o, ė merged with a, e.

Very little evidence indicates the actual history of my grandmother Žeruolytė’s surname. All that is known is that my grandfather Kazys Skapas married Kotryna Žeruolytė from the village of Baubliai, located across the Šventoji (we used to say from anašalių). The origins of her great-grandparents are unclear; archival records have not yet been studied.

³ Plačiau apie šią giminystės rūšį ir jos narių pavadinimus žr. Buivydienė 1997.

152

Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXVI

Antroponimijos lingvistinė analizė ir reali asmenvardžių istorija

Lisas. My wife Regina’s maiden surname: Lis-aitė. Linguistic analysis allows the surname Lisas to be derived from the baptismal-name variant Aloyzas, Alisas, which has lost its initial A-. The baptismal form Alisas originated from the Latinized Germanic name Aloysius, Aloisius, which developed from the Germanic dithematic personal name Alwis: Old High German al ‘all’ + wīsi ‘wise’. The baptismal-name stem A(Lis) must have reached Lithuania from the East, from Byzantium via the Eastern Slavs. This is indicated by the consonant s not having undergone voicing, unlike the currently used baptismal name Aloýzas, which we receive from the West, from Rome via the Poles, with voiced s, which became z, indicating German as an intermediary.

The shortened stem Lis- (without A-), derived from a baptismal name, has given rise to numerous surnames in Lithuania: Lisýš, Lis-aitis, Lis-ėvičius, Lis-inskas, Lis-ičkas, Lis-ėckas, Lis-áuskas and the like, as well as forms with the infix k: Lìskus, Lisk-aitis, Lisk-ėvičius, among others. Cf. Liz-áitis, with voiced s, pointing toward the West.

Records showing the actual origin of my wife’s surname go back only to the mid-nineteenth century. Her grandfather Juozapas Lisas (1855–1939) came from the Kupiškis area. He bought land in Tutkonys (this settlement no longer exists). Later he moved to Pupónis. He married Juozapata Vaitiekūnaitė (1872–1957) from Jutkonys. Just before the First World War, around 1911–1912, he moved with three other farmers from the Kupiškis region to Samogitia, to Apýdimai, in the parish of Upýna, near the small church settlement of Upýna (Telšiai County). Thus, an island of Kupiškis-area people came to exist surrounded by Samogitians. Today, you will not find the village of Apydimai on any map of Lithuania. Because of land reclamation and other misfortunes, not the slightest trace of the village remains.

Juozapas Lisas’s children—his sons Povilas (born in 1897), Petras (born in 1899), Juozas (Regina’s father, born in 1903), Jonas (born in 1912), and daughter Ona (born in 1900)—went to Samogitia while still children. The only youngest son, Stasys, was born in Samogitian territory in 1914. Nevertheless, they all retained their native Kupiškis dialect well, at least its most important features. But the same cannot be said of their children: they became Samogitian, and no traces of their parents’ native Kupiškis dialect remained in their speech. As a dialectologist, I found it interesting to observe the speech of the older generation of ‘Samogitian Kupiškis speakers’ and the competition between Kupiškis and Samogitian linguistic features in it. This provided material for reflection on problems in general linguistics, especially the resilience of individual linguistic features to foreign influence.

Regina’s father Juozas, who had lived among the Samogitians only briefly before moving to Kaunas in 1924, had, one might say, virtually no Samogitian features in his speech. He did not acquire this dialect, although his wife was Samogitian. His speech was influenced most strongly by the language of the cities of Kaunas in that period and later Vilnius, where he lived longest. Prominent Kupiškis features also remained.

Much the same can be said about the speech of his eldest brother Povilas. The situation was different for the brothers who spent their entire lives among the Samogitians: Petras (who farmed in Apydimai),

Įžvalgos / Insights

153

ZIGMAS ZINKEVIČIUS

Stasys (worked as a forester near Kuršėnai) and his sister Ona (married into the village of Kirklių, beyond Upyna, and lived surrounded by Samogitians all her life), whose speech featured a very pronounced competition between Samogitian and Aukštaitian—more precisely, Kupiškėnai—elements. Their brother Jonas left for Argentina in 1929, and nothing can be said about his speech.

Surnames formed from the baptismal-name stem Lis- seem to have been less characteristic of Samogitians than of Aukštaitians since ancient times. One small detail is interesting. Kupiškėnai pronounce the surname Lisas with a lengthened, stressed vowel i (lìsas) ‘thin’. They even suspected that this surname was nickname-derived and traced it to “a thin person”.

The absence of older genealogical data makes it difficult to determine whether the ancestors of the Lisas family had a surname (perhaps a personal name not yet inherited) with the initial vowel A-, that is, *Alìsas, or only a form without A-: Lìsas, perhaps brought to Lithuania already without A-.

Stasiulis. The surname of Regina’s maternal grandmother’s parents.

Linguistic analysis derives the surname Stasiulis from the Slavic baptismal name Stanislovas (from the Slavic two-stem personal name Stani-slavъ: stani ‘stand, become’ + slava ‘glory’), a shortened form Stasỹs, expanded with the diminutive suffix -ulis. This surname and its further suffixal derivatives (Stasiul-aitis, Stasiul-iónis, Stasiul-ėvičius, etc.) are widespread throughout almost all of Lithuania: they are found among both Samogitians and Aukštaitians.

Data showing the real history of Regina’s grandfather’s surname Stasiulis are available only from the second half of the nineteenth century; those from the middle of that century are vague. Regina’s grandfather Tomas Stasiulis was born in 1864 in the village of Barvyžiai, about 5 km from Luókė, on the way toward Viekšnálių (people usually call it Beibele). His ancestors most likely lived here as well. The village is now nearing extinction. Tomas Stasiulis married Viktorija Česnytė, sister of the renowned professor and VDU vice-rector Blažiejus Česnys (1884–1944). Their children were Pranas (born 1912, died in 1952 in a Bolshevik camp somewhere in the Arkhangelsk region), Kazė (Lisienė, Regina’s mother, 1904–2000), Ona (Rastenienė, 1906–1976; she left for Argentina in 1929), Viktorija (Jogminienė, 1908–1989), and Aleksandras (1911–1960).

After studying at a domestic-science school, Regina’s mother Kazė Stasiulytė-Lisienė became housekeeper for her uncle and godfather, Prof. Blažiejus Česnys, in Kaunas. In their yard stood an unprepossessing little red-brick house in which Professor Kazimieras Būga settled after returning from Russia. While working as housekeeper for Prof. Česnys, Kazė Stasiulytė met Juozas Lisas, who had completed his military service and was living in Kaunas, and married him. For a time, the two lived with Prof. Česnys.

Kazė Stasiulytė-Lisienė retained her native Southern Samogitian dialect well (her husband, as mentioned, did not learn to speak Samogitian). Regina also knows this dialect well. She learned it from her mother and her Samogitian-speaking grandparents while spending summers in Barvyžiai. Regina’s brothers and sisters were born later, after their parents had moved to Telšiai, and they learned not their mother’s “dūnininkiškas” dialect, but Telšiai’s “dounininkiškas” Samogitian dialect from the surrounding people who spoke it.

154

Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXVI

Antroponimijos lingvistinė analizė ir reali asmenvardžių istorija

Because older genealogical data are lacking, it is impossible to determine when and how Regina’s grandfather’s surname Stasiulis originated: whether its original meaning was ‘son of Stasys’, ‘little Stasys’, or something else.

Next, we will discuss several surnames more relevant to our topic, whose bearers are not related to us.

Baltrušis. The surname of my fellow student at the Ukmergė Gymnasium, Professor Romualdas Baltrušis.

Linguistic analysis indicates that it derives from the baptismal name Baltramiejus (from Aramaic Bar-Talmai ‘son of Ptolemy’), shortened to Baltras + the suffix -ušis, used to form agent nouns (nomina agentis); cf. the surnames Baltušis, Toliūšis, etc., and the nouns gailliūšis ‘one who can give everything to another’, tėtūšis ‘daddy’, etc.

There is little data showing the actual history of Professor Baltrušis’s surname. Romualdas’s father, Stasys (Stanislovas), was a teacher and head of a school in Ukmergė. His father, Matas, was a farmer who owned a farm in Bliuvai, between Kaunas and Veiveriai. His predecessors, who lived in the same area, were farmers as well. Some of them used the double surname Baltrušio and Balt-rušaičio. A variant with the patronymic suffix -aitis would be impossible in the vicinity of Ukmergė unless the person had moved there from elsewhere. Four generations of the Baltrušis family are known in all. The earlier origins of this family still lie hidden in the archives and have not been investigated.

Jovaiša. The surname of archaeologist Professor Eugenijus Jovaiša.

Linguistic analysis indicates that it derives from the ancient Lithuanian two-stem personal name Jó-vaiša or Jo-vaišas. The first element, Jó-, cf. Jó-gailas, Jó-gaudas, Jó-kantas, Jó-mantas, Jó-tautas, Jó-oydas, etc. The Prussians also had this element, so it is a very ancient inheritance (associated with jó-ti). The second element, -vaišas, cf. Gaud-vaišas, Nór-vaišas, Taūt-vaišas, Tól-vaišas, and so on, and Vaiš-mantas, Vaiš-noras, Vaiš-tautas, Vaiš-vilas, as well as shortened forms and their derivatives, Vaišas, Vaišys, Vaiš-ūtis, etc. The Prussians also had this element, pronounced Vais-; it is associated with vá išės, and is therefore likewise a very ancient inheritance.

There is not much data showing the actual history of Professor Jovaiša’s surname. His father, Leonas, a professor of education, was born in Lieplaukė (Telšiai District), in the Samogitian region. His grandfather, Antanas (born in 1875), used a double surname: Jóvaiša and Jóva išas. He was a musician, served as an organist in Lieplaukė, and engaged in trade there. However, he was born not in Lieplaukė but in the Aukštaitian region, near Pãsvalys, from which his great-grandparents also came.

Since the surname Jóvaiša consists of an ancient two-stem personal name—more precisely, its ā-stem form—there were probably no major changes to this surname in the past, apart from the variation, as we have seen, between a-stem and ā-stem forms. This should be revealed by archival documents from earlier periods, which have yet to be investigated.

Įžvalgos / Insights

155

ZIGMAS ZINKEVIČIUS

Reason. The surname of Valdemaras Razumas, president of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. The primary center of this surname’s distribution is around Ukmergė. The surname Prōtas is also used roughly there. Thus, the thought naturally arises that Rāzumas may be a calque of the surname Prōtas. In that case, associating the surname with the noun prōtas would be a product of folk etymology, since the surname Prōtas actually has an entirely different origin. It derives from the Latinized Greek baptismal name Protasius: Greek protássō ‘I place in front’. Cf. surnames formed from this baptismal name, Protasėvičius, Pratasėvičius, etc. The Ruthenians also had a personal name of the same origin, for example, Прамас ← Прамасий.

There is also a variant of the baptismal name, Protāzas, with a hardened consonant s, indicating that it came from the West via the Poles (cf. Polish Protazy), Czechs, and Germans (they too hardened s), from Rome.

The form of the baptismal name with s came to us from the East, via the Eastern Slavs, from Byzantium. We also find the element -protas: Nó-protas. in dithematic personal names. However, this personal name may be a Prussianism, so it is unlikely that its element -protas is concealed in the surname in question.

In considering the origin of the surname Rāzumas, one must keep in mind the fact that Belarusians bear the surname Розум, which could in turn point to the role of a Baltic (Lithuanian) substratum in its origin. The same should be said of the Polish surname Rozum if it originated in areas that belonged to the old Lithuanian state or where Baltic-speaking (Lithuanian-speaking) people lived in the past.

The actual history of Valdemaras Razumas’s surname remains unexplored. About three or four generations are known. Genealogical research should confirm or refute the arguments presented.

DIFFICULTIES OF GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH

What has been said shows that linguistic analysis reveals the possible origin of a personal name, or several possible variants of that origin. Only establishing the actual history of the surname in question can determine which of them applies, and this cannot be done without genealogical research.

Lithuanians generally know their family origins no further back than three or four generations. Exceptions are rare. Earlier origins are discussed vaguely, often merely guessed at, or even imagined.

Anyone wishing to investigate their distant origins on the basis of written sources—which is what genuine genealogical research entails—faces considerable difficulties. Such documents are heterogeneous: the most important are probably the registers of births and marriages. In the past, registers were kept only in churches, since civil registration was introduced in Lithuania relatively recently. During the years of Soviet occupation, from the churches

156

Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXVI

Antroponimijos lingvistinė analizė ir reali asmenvardžių istorija

The registers were transported to Vilnius, where a special archive was established for them. However, some records also remained in churches. A considerable number of registers from earlier periods are also kept in research libraries and various archives. Thus, searching for them is no easy task.

Personal names entered in registers from earlier periods (the 17th–19th centuries)—whether they had not yet become hereditary or were already functioning as surnames—are not authentic, because Polish priests and Lithuanian priests who had become Polonized would render them in Polish and even “translate” them into Polish. Studying these personal names not only helps clarify the history of a surname’s Polonization and distortion, but also provides important data that shed light on the actual development of a particular surname (not merely as recorded in documents).

A great deal of significant genealogical data can be found in church visitation records preserved in archives. The Lithuanian Catholic Academy of Science recently began publishing these records, thereby providing a great service to the study of Lithuanian anthroponymy.

The second source of great importance for genealogical research is estate inventories. Only some have been published; the others remain manuscripts kept in research libraries or archives. As legal documents, the personal names found in estate inventories have a qualified degree of authenticity: more than in church registers, these record personal-name forms (Lithuanian or Polonized) as they were used at the time by the bearers themselves and their neighbors. This is very important.

However, one must never lose sight of the fact that personal names in all sources were influenced at the time by the “official,” semi-Polish anthroponymy used by a Polonized society. Consequently, one constantly encounters the need to restore personal names to Lithuanian forms and the problems involved in doing so, which require additional work. Reconstructing the true Lithuanian forms is essential; otherwise, it will be impossible to clarify their actual development.

The difficulties of studying documents of every kind begin with the effort to determine which administrative unit—usually a parish or an estate—a settlement of interest to us belonged to in the past, and therefore in the records of which parish or estate the surname should be sought.

The search is an extremely complex and painstaking task. One must examine piles of documents written in an estimated (and difficult to determine) period before finding the surname being sought. It is not always easy to identify it either—that is, to connect it with the family in question, clarify the degree of kinship, and determine whether it belongs to the genealogical line or reflects only one of several types of kinship. This is very important. All this work requires much time and effort, particularly because personal names in the sources have not yet been indexed, comprehensive indexes have not been compiled, and there is no consolidated register covering all of Lithuania.

Įžvalgos / Insights

157

ZIGMAS ZINKEVIČIUS

CONCLUSIONS

1. Genealogical research is very important to the science of anthroponymy, as it sheds light on the actual development and origin of the personal name in question.

2. Genealogical research makes it possible to establish which of the origin hypotheses for a personal name, identified through linguistic analysis (there is often more than one), is correct.

3. When studying a personal name in the sources, it is important to distinguish the line of inheritance (its genealogy) from kinship in general, the various degrees of which were described using varying terms.

4. The status of a personal name found in the sources must be established: is it already a surname, or is it still a non-hereditary personal name (byname)? Establishing its status clarifies the genealogical research itself.

5. The great difficulties involved in genealogical research and clarifying a family’s origins create opportunities for unscrupulous people seeking to profit from those searching for their roots. Swindlers “create” fictitious documents or produce purported copies of them, supposedly showing what a person is looking for. In doing so, they undermine future serious research, mislead researchers, and make their work more difficult. A sincere piece of advice to everyone searching for their family roots: beware of swindlers!

LITERATŪRA

Buivydienė Rūta 1997: Lietuvių kalbos vedbyų giminystės pavadinimai. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas.

Zinkevičius Zigmas 1999: Prie lituanistikos židinio. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas.

Zinkevičius Zigmas 2003: Rinktiniai straipsniai 3. Vilnius: Katalikų akademija.

Įteikta 2012 m. sausio 31 d.

ZIGMAS ZINKEVIČIUS

Justinškių 41–24, LT-05127 Vilnius, Lietuva

[email protected]

158

Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXVI