Welcome cousins!
We have created this page to collect all we know as an effort to push back into Lithuanian records is starting. While Antonio's relatives in Lithuania were found in the 1980's by Ed, the father's history has never been determined. With Ed's BigY DNA testing giving new clues and alliances with an interested researcher, and due to the advance in records available, there is much more to go on and catalog to build the case for Peter and Antonia's ancestry. Until individual pages make sense, we will keep the parents research from before their marriage here.
Name Variations
For Peter, we have many variations of the name in how it is spelled.For his given name, the Polish version is Piotr. He seemed to sign it Piter in his Naturalization documents in Pennsylvania. Peter is how he was known in America, for the most part.
For his surname, the Motiejunas family in Lithuania says it would be spelled Łastauskas. Professor Łukasz, running the deep clad project that Ed's BigY result puts him in, says the Polish form would be Łostowski. This is also how it appeared on ship arrival records.
We use the form here by how he was known most of his life; which was in America and where he went by Peter Lostoski.
Peter before the family
From Peter's Hamburg departure and New York arrival Ship Amalfi Manifest (passenger lists) in 1889, we derive that he is from Suwałki. At the time of his departure, the major town and region was in Lithuania; which is the Nationality, culture and language Peter identified with. Around the time of his departure, a dispute with Poland put the town and most of the region in Poland; even though it contained a large Lithuanian speaking populace. Following WWI and annexation into the Russian Federation, Lithuania lost more territory; primarily to Belarus, to form its present borders.Prof Łukasz Stanaszek of Warsaw could not find Peter in the Suwałki town parish records. So he is thinking other parishes to check are Kalwaria, Gryszkabuda and Wylkowyszki. Kalwaria is likely Kalvarija in the center of the Suwałki region of old that is wholly within the current Lithuanian border. (See Geographical Dictionary of the Polish Kingdom and other Slavic countries, Volume XI.)