Historical Background - Administrative Divisions of Lithuania

To do this, one needs at least a little knowledge of the administrative history of the country. So I will remind you of a few things. Just after Russia occupied Lithuania at the very end of the 18^th Century, in 1795, the administrative divisions changed several times. At last, in the beginning of the 19^th Century, all the territory of Lithuania belonged to the so-called Lithuania guberniya, or later as it was called Vilnius guberniya. This included all the territory of modern Lithuania and some adjacent territories as well.

In the middle of the 19^th Century, this large Vilnius guberniya was divided into two, Vilnius and Kaunas guberniya, and the records we have are only for Kaunas guberniya. We have no records for Vilnius or Suwalki guberniyas whatsoever.

This is a Lithuanian map which shows the division of the territory of Lithuania into guberniyas. All the colored territory that you see was the former Vilnius guberniya. In 1843 it was divided in the middle.

The left part (green) was Kaunas guberniya and the right part (red) was Vilnius guberniya and certain adjacent territories from Grodno and Minsk guberniya. The southwest side of Vilnius guberniya is now the Suwalki guberniya. We only have records for the Kaunas guberniya. It seems small, but it covers the larger part of what is modern Lithuania. Now I'll show you a better map for Kaunas guberniya. Perhaps it will be more helpful.

Here is the map of Kaunas guberniyas. Its territory has not changed since 1843. As you can see, Kaunas guberniya is divided into seven smaller districts called uyezds: Kaunas, Raseinai, Telsiai, Siauliai, Panevezys, Ukmerge or Vilkomir, and Zarazai or Novoalexandrovsk districts. Part of Novoalexandrovsk district is now in Belarus and a very small part of it is now in Latvia.