IAGL Helps Sue Perkins Find German Roots in Lithuania
Press Release 28 May 2022:
Sue Perkins is well known in the US among The Great British Bake-Off as one of the hosts of the show and is very well known in the UK and commonwealth countries.
From its inception, the mission of the International Association of Germans from Lithuania (IAGL) has been to gather information and share the history of the “Germans from southwestern Lithuania by providing genealogical and historical resources to the public.” The IAGL met this goal by using its resources of indexed records in response to an inquiry from the BBC genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are?
In October 2021 IAGL President Owen McCafferty was contacted by Wall to Wall Research to assist in genealogical research. One of the celebrities from The Great British Bake Off, Sue Perkins, has Deutsche aus Litauen [Germans from Lithuania] roots in southwestern Lithuania.
The IAGL was required by contract to keep their help under wraps until the episode was aired Saturday, May 28 at 9 P.M. in the United Kingdom.
McCafferty commented, “We were able to uncover four generations of Perkins’ German roots in southwest Lithuania, particularly those of her Tieslauk (also known as Tislau or Tislauk) family who had a large farming operation in Navininken [Navininkai]. The family attended the Kalwaria [Kalvarija] Lutheran Church where many records were originally recorded.”
McCafferty further explained, “One of the largest assets of the IAGL is our online searchable database of indexed records on the Germans from Lithuania. Many of the records on Perkins family had not been indexed yet. I found them by reading through the Polish and Russian language Lutheran church records and translating what I could for the producers.”
The IAGL also helped search for individuals in Lithuania who remembered Perkins’ family in Navininken before the Germans fled the area at the end of WWII.
Perkins’ German family in Lithuania relocated to the Third Reich in 1941. The IAGL utilized records from the Einwandererzentrallstelle [Central Immigration Office or EWZ] which uncovered valuable details about the family as well as photographs of many of the relatives Perkins had never known existed.
This url provides more details about the episode and two short clips:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017p9n
During the episode, the German community that was once a significant minority in southwest Lithuania before 1945 is discussed as Perkins’ Tieslauk family was a part of this diaspora.
The Tieslauk family farm is today just a farmer’s field, and upon arriving there in the bitter Lithuanian winter, Perkins exclaims, “It might be a pile of icy mud, but I don’t care! It’s home!”
After an early screening McCafferty concluded: “It was my greatest pleasure to fulfil the mission of our organization – to help those who want to know more about their German roots in Lithuania. As a big fan of Sue Perkins, the countless hours of research not only helped a truly wonderful person learn about her ancestors but also put a spotlight on a beautiful part of Lithuania. I hope that others who have similar ancestral backgrounds use the IAGL to help with their own research”
More information on the International Association of Germans from Lithuania is on their website at www.GermansFromLithuania.org. Their index, which is free and open to the public, is at index.germansfromlithuania.org.