The patterns of recording the names of German residents in Kėdainiai in the nineteenth century: Introductory remarks
The patterns of recording the names of German residents in Kėdainiai in the nineteenth century: Introductory remarks

Summary/Abstract: The article analyses the patterns of recording German surnames in the town of Kėdainiai in the nineteenth century on the basis of about 350 names extracted from archival records; all of them refer to different individuals. Although the settlers of German origin who arrived in Kėdainiai from 1629 already had their surnames, the patterns of their recording varied. This is particularly obvious in cases where members of the same family (e.g. husband and wife) were recorded side by side. In some instances, the woman’s given and maiden names were omitted. Furthermore, some record files of the magistrate indicate only the surname of the litigating spouses. Also, a person (plaintiff, defendant, etc.) mentioned in one document could be referred to in a shorter, simpler or just different form in another record of the trial. More diversity can be observed in the case of the names of female members of the German community in Kėdainiai. On the 1840 list of persons who fulfilled religious rites (received communion) in Kėdainiai (in Keydan), as well as in other parish registers, the surnames of women of German ancestry appear in the same form as those of their husbands or fathers, i.e. without Slavic suffixes (unlike in the book of acts of Kėdainiai of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries). The surnames were recorded in German by persons who were ethnic Germans or had a good command of the language.

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