Kaltinėnai

Scott and I started the "family history" portion of our trip to Lithuania by meeting with Vincas Bundza, the man I hired to research the Slykas family in Lithuania. We started in Kaunas which is where Vincas lives. Our driver, Igor, took us to the first stop in Kaltinėnai. This is where Scott's relatives from his Grandmother Lorraine's side of the family lived.

Kaltinėnai is a small town in the west of Lithuania, located in the Šilalė district municipality, Tauragė County. Kaltinėnai has around 728 inhabitants.

Since Vytautas the Great built the first wooden church in 1416, there have been about six wooden churches in Kaltinėnai. Some of these churches burned down and others simply collapsed. The current church, known as the church of St. John the Baptist, was completed in 1995.

Unfortunately, the church was locked so we were not able to photograph the interior. We also did not visit the graveyard because it was so large that it would have been impossible to locate a particular grave in a short time.Read more