2. ŠUGŽDA FAMILY in SCOTLAND

by Alan Craig         Download the PDF of this page (3.9 MB)

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PART A: BELLSHILL, Lanarkshire (1904–1911)

It’s not known why, how, or exactly when Jonas, Petronėlė and their five children migrated from Lauckaimis to Bellshill in the Lanarkshire coalfields. The Tsarist authorities of the time did not allow Lithuanians to leave the country, so their exodus would have been by stealth; for our family, a short crossing of the nearby Širvinta River would have taken them into East Prussia, and, from there, a train could ferry them to Hamburg or Bremen, the likely ports of embarkation. Leith, near Edinburgh, was a major port for new arrivals from Lithuania. Agents from mining companies like Merry & Cunninghame were in the Baltic actively recruiting workers for their mines and ironworks in Scotland, and Jonas was certainly soon working at the pits in Bellshill. Whether the family had come for work, to escape grinding poverty, to avoid arrest for ‘illegal’ activities, or avoid conscription in the Tzar’s army is also unknown — perhaps it was a combination of those factors.

However, we do know our Šugžda family were settled in Bellshill by early 1904 (just around the time our McKay family moved from Bellshill to Galston) because that’s where their youngest child, Maggie, died of tuberculosis in January (names in purple are my direct ancestors):

1904 SCOTLAND DEATHS: Bellshill, Lanarkshire ¹Source: Shuzsda [Šugžda], Maggie; 1904 Scotland Statutory Deaths; 625/3 34; Bellshill, Lanarkshire.

Maggie Shuzsda (Single)
died: 13th January 1904  (9:30 pm)   age: 14 months
at: 7 Bellside Terrace, Glebe Street, Bellshill
—
father: Jonas Shuzsda, Coal Miner  [Šugžda]
mother: Patrone Shuzsda M.S. Merninkaitis [Melnikaitytė]
—
cause: Tuberculosis of Mesenteric Glands; 1 month
doctor: Thomas G Picken M.B. Ch.B.
informant: Jonas Shuzsda (his X mark), Father (present)
witness: Gavin Blackie, Registrar

This child was completely unknown to me until I accidentally stumbled across this record while using search wildcards on ScotlandsPeople. The spelling of the Lithuanian names is all over the place, as usual, but her age tells us she must have been born in November 1902.

No birth is recorded for “Maggie” in Scotland, so it seems reasonable to assume she was born in Lauckaimis, Lithuania, or possibly while in transit to Scotland. It means the family likely left the Baltic sometime in 1903, and probably arrived in Bellshill that same year. It is also of note that they recorded her name with the Anglicised ”Maggie”, and we can speculate that her Lithuanian name might have been Magdalena.

We also know that Petronėlė had now lost five of her children in infancy, but was already mid-term with her next child. Just over four months after “Maggie” died, at the same address, Petronėlė gave birth to her tenth child — the seventh for Jonas:

1904 SCOTLAND BIRTHS: Bellshill, Lanarkshire ²Source: Shugesda, John; 1904 Scotland Statutory Births; 625/3 309; Bellshill, Lanarkshire.

John Shugesda
born: 28th May 1904  (6:00 am)
at: 7 Bellside Terrace, Glebe Street, Bellshill
—
father: John Shugesda, Coal Miner   [Šugžda]
mother: Patrone Shugesda M.S. Menikaitis  [Melnikaitytė]
parents married: 6 September, 1890  
at: Vladislaw, Poland [Vladislavov, Lithuania; now Kudirkos Naumiestis.]
—
informant: John Shugesda (his X mark), Father (present)

The family could only have been in Scotland for about a year, and already we can see the adoption of Anglicised spellings for their names (“Shugesda” is an English phonetic version of Šugžda). This record is the first to give us a marriage date for Jonas and Petronėlė and, as we discussed on the previous page, it is unlikely to be correct. Another feature of note is that the marriage place is given as “Vladislaw, Poland” — the British government saw these Lithuanian migrants as being Russian citizens, and accepted that Lithuania was part of Russia’s Polish province.

Among the Lithuanians who came to Scotland around the same time as the Šugžda family was one Vincas Stepšys, whose son Jonas (aka John Miller) later wrote about the times and the struggles of the Lithuanian people against the cruel tyranny of their Russian overlords. His father had been a ‘book smuggler’ (known as the knygnešiai), who in the late 1890s was illegally bringing Lithuanian language books in from East Prussia at great risk of arrest and imprisonment (some were burned alive with their books!). Like Petronėlė, this family came from the Sakalupis Estate, but Vincas and his brother Juozas fled in 1899 when the Russians tried to arrest them. They made their way overland to Hamburg, and eventually caught a ship to Leith in Scotland. As with our family, they soon ended up in the Lanarkshire coalmines in Bellshill. John Millar’s story can be found here. Interestingly, Petronėlė’s paternal grandmother was Ieva Stepšytė, and ‘Stepšytė’ means ‘daughter of Stepšys’ — so it is quite possible, given the Sakalupis connection (a farm with about 70 workers), that we are related in some way to Vincas Stepšys the book smuggler.

The roughly 7,000 Catholic Lithuanians who arrived in the Lanarkshire coalfields between 1890 and World War 1 were certainly not welcomed by the local Presbyterian Scots, who were alarmed that these foreigners were taking jobs and lowering wages. The local trade unions were vociferous in their condemnation of these ‘imported foreign workers’, even branding them as “evil” — but, gradually, these immigrants began to join the unions and, in 1905, the Lithuanian miners strongly supported a successful strike action that had many out for eight months (see the article on Lithuanian Miners). No doubt, Jonas Šugžda would have been involved in that strike, and this event seems to be a turning point in the local acceptance of the Lithuanian community.

The Lithuanians in Lanarkshire had set up Lithuanian newspapers like Laikis (‘Time’), societies (e.g. Sviesa, meaning ‘Enlightenment’), meeting halls, and a church, at Mossend, with a Lithuanian priest. At this time, Dr Juozas Bagdonas, a national figure in Lithuania, had fled his homeland and was active within the community at Bellshill. Bagdonas was born at Slibinai, the neighbouring farm to Sakalupis, which was also the birthplace of Petronėlė’s first husband, Pranciškus Simanavičius. So, with rising political action by workers, the 1905 Russian revolution, the founding of Socialist parties, active Lithuanian nationalism at home and abroad, these would have been electrifying times for the workers at Bellshill, and no doubt for the Šugžda family too. However, after a break of nearly six years, Petronėlė and Jonas had their final child:

1910 SCOTLAND BIRTHS: Bellshill, Lanarkshire ³Source: Shugesda, Alexandra; 1910 Scotland Statutory Births; 625/3 138; Bellshill, Lanarkshire.

Alexandra Shugesda,
born: 26th February, 1910  (10:00 pm)

at: 4 Bellgowan Terrace, Glebe Street, Bellshill
—
father: John Shugesda, Coal Miner   [Šugžda]
mother: Patrone Shugesda M.S. Melnikaitis [Melnikaitytė]
married: 6 September, 1890  at: Vladislaw, Poland
—
informant: John Shugesda (his X mark), Father (present)

As we can see, the information is almost identical to John’s record, and the myth of an 1890 marriage is repeated. The family was still using the “Shugesda” spelling, which John and his family used for the remainder of their lives. “Alexandra” is, of course, a female name, and this is likely a scribal error for the common Lithuanian name of Aleksandras — but for the rest of his life, he was known as Alex Sugzda. When Alex was nearly one, his older half-sister, Annie (born Ona Simanavičiūtė), started her own branch of the family when, at 19, she married Jonas Zinkevičius, a coal miner like her step-father:

1911 SCOTLAND MARRIAGES: Bellshill, Lanarkshire ⁴Source: Zikewiczius, Jonas & Samanavicute, Annie; 1911 Scotland Statutory Marriages; 625/3 26; Bellshill, Lanarkshire.

married: 5th February, 1911
at: Roman Catholic Church, Mossend
after Publication, according to the Forms of
the Roman Catholic Church
—
Jonas Zikewiczius (Bachelor), Coal Miner     
of: 24 Hamilton Road, Bellshill     age: 26
father: Wincas Zikewiczius, Farmer
mother:  Amelia Zikewiczius M.S. Vishnouskie (deceased)
—
Annie Samanavicute (Spinster)     age: 19     
of: 6 Bellside Terrace, Glebe Street, Bellshill
father: Jonas Samanavicute (deceased)   [Pranciškus Simanavičius]
mother: Patrone Samanavicute [Simanavičiūtė] M.S. Milnisckute [Melnikaitytė]
—
minister: Francis Cronin  
witnesses: George Ziugzda [Jurgis Šugžda ?];  Josephine Teimer

Most of the names in this marriage record are misspelt — e.g. “Zikewiczius” for Zinkevičius; and “Samanavicute” for Simanavičiūtė. The given names are Anglicised, and Annie’s father was Pranciškus, not “Jonas”. Also, Scottish records would normally include her mother’s current married name, and should have appeared as: “Petronėlė Šugžda or Simanavičiūtė M.S. Melnikaitytė” (a mouthful for sure for the poor Registrar; my mother would say she’d have been better off with a number!).

Annie was living with her family who were still in Glebe Street, though now in a different row. An interesting thing about this marriage is that it was solemnised in the Lithuanian Catholic Church in Mossend — the last time any of that family were married in church, and this is a clue to changing attitudes within the family and the Lithuanian community in general. Also, one of the witnesses is named as “George Ziugzda”. Since “Jurgis” is Lithuanian for “George”, and “Ziugzda” is phonetically very close “Šugžda”, I think this witness could be the “Jurgis Shusda” who we find in the 1911 census (below).

My mother and her cousins always said that the family disapproved of Annie marrying a Pole (see article on Matilda Fletcher), and although Zinkevičius is ostensibly a Lithuanian name, it has a Polish spelling in the marriage certificate. His mother’s name, Vishnouskie, seems decidedly Polish as well, so Jonas may well have been from a Polish community in southern Suvalki. Later events seem to confirm that.

However, despite the disdain the family seemed to have for Poles, Jonas and Annie moved in with the Šugžda family after they married, and two months later, we find the whole family registered in the 1911 Scotland census (and nearby, another very interesting record):

1911 SCOTLAND CENSUS: 6 Bellside Terrace, Bellshill, Lanarkshire ⁵Source: Shugesda, Jonas; 1911 Scotland Census; 625/3 12/ 6 & 12; Bellshill, Lanarkshire.

Jonas Zinkovich [Zinkevičius]; Head; 26; Mar; Coalminer Hewer (worker); born Russian Poland; nationality Russian
Ona Zinkovich [Simanavičiūtė]; Wife; 20; Mar 1 yr (no children); born Russian Poland; nationality Russian
—
Jonas Shugesda [Šugžda]; Head; 41; Mar.; Coalminer Hewer (worker); born Russian Poland; nationality Russian
Sarah Shugesda [Petronėlė Melnikaitytė]; Wife; 41; Mar. 20 years (10 births, 5 living); born Russian Poland; nationality Russian
Joseph Shugesda; Son; 17; Unm.; Coalminer Hewer (worker); born Russian Poland; nationality Russian
Bernard Shugesda; Son; 15; Unm.; Coalminer Hewer (worker); born Russian Poland; nationality Russian
Sarah Shugesda [Petronėlė Juzė Šugždaitė]; Daur.; 10; School; born Russian Poland; nationality Russian
John Shugesda; Son; 7; School; born Lanark, Bothwell
Alex Shugesda; Son; 1; born Lanark, Bothwell

4 Bellgowan Terrace, Bellshill, Lanarkshire ⁶Source: Shusda, Jurgis; 1911 Scotland Census; 625/3 12/ 12; Bellshill, Lanarkshire.

Vincas Olenskas [Alanskas]; Head; 24; Mar; Coalminer Hewer (worker); born Russian Poland; nationality Russian
Ursyule Olenskas; Wife; 19; Mar. 1 year (no children); born Russian Poland; nationality Russian
Jurgis Shusda * [Šugžda ?]; Boarder; 29; Unm.; Coalminer Hewer (worker); born Russian Poland; nationality Russian
                                         [* is Jurgis the witness at Annie’s wedding two months earlier? Note the address!]

This record tells us a good deal about the family. Still residing in the rows at Glebe Street, we have all the living children together and mostly using Anglicised names. By this time, both my great-grandmother and grandmother had taken the name “Sarah”, and this is how they were mostly known for the rest of their lives.

The men and older boys were working as hewers in one of the local coal mines. Incorrectly, this census records Petronėlė as having had ten children with five still living; however, she had given birth to eleven and, counting Ona (who was two months pregnant at this time), there were six alive (perhaps Ona has been disowned for marrying a Pole!); and the “20 years married” would give a marriage year of 1891, not 1890 — so, further evidence that the date given on the boys’ Scottish birth records was incorrect. We also see official proof that the British government only recognised Lithuania as part of Poland, and that our family, excepting the two youngest boys, were technically Russian nationals.

Nº4 Bellgowan Terrace

An intriguing find in this census (above) shows a 29-year-old coalminer, Jurgis Shusda, boarding with a Lithuanian couple at 4 Bellgowan Terrace in Glebe Street [I have been contacted by a grand-niece of this couple]. This was the address our family were living at in the previous year, and where Alex was born. But there’s more! At that very same address, four months after Alex’s birth, Jonas and Marcele Vidrinskas lost a one-year-old child to pneumonia — the same couple lost another child in October, 1913 at New Orbiston. Even more interesting was that Marcele was living at 4 Bellgowan Terrace in 1907 when she married Jonas Vidrinskas. All this seems more than coincidence. Remember, also, that Petronėlė’s mother was Ona Vidrinskaitė (i.e. daughter of Vidrinskas), so it’s not hard to imagine that other members of the extended family had fled Lithuania at the same time — perhaps we have found some of them ghettoed in Glebe Street, Bellshill. I think this might form the basis of some future research.

Sometime soon after the 1911 census, our family left Bellshill for a pit village 2½ km (1½ miles) further south. Johnny and Annie would return to Bellshill many years later but, for now, the Šugžda and Zinkevičius families said goodbye to Glebe Street and headed for Bothwellhaugh.

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PART B: BOTHWELLHAUGH (1911–1922)

In the 1880s, Bothwellhaugh was just a farm near a bend in the River Clyde; but by 1913, it was one of the biggest coal mines in Lanarkshire with about 1,400 employees. The Hamilton Palace Colliery (aka ‘The Palais’) was operated by the Bent Colliery Company, which provided 458 rental houses for its workforce (read the history here).

A single room with no water in 1910 cost £4/17s/6d per annum, but if you had water, it would cost £5/4s/–. Some houses had two rooms, and a few even had a dry toilet — but only 27 of them had a bath! Mind you, there were communal bathrooms, but most miners would have washed down from a hard day at the coalface in the sink, or have a small tub in front of the fireplace where their womenfolk would scrub them down before they took their dinner. None of this may seem appealing to us more than a hundred years on — but, in 1911, this village became home for the Šugžda and Zinkevičius families after they moved from Bellshill.

Although Ona and her husband Jonas had lived with or near her family in Bellshill, they lived in different rows after the relocation to Bothwellhaugh. Jonas & Petronėlė (now calling themselves John and Sarah Sugistaff) moved to Nº 13 Park Place with their four boys and my Granny;⁷Source: SUGISTAFF (Šugžda), John; 1915 Valuation Roll; VR10700306-/392, Bothwell, Lanarkshire. while Ona and Jonas (now calling themselves Annie and John Zantavick) took up residence at Nº 2 Store Place.⁸Source: Zantavick [Zinkevicius], John; 1915 Valuation Roll; VR10700306-/386, Bothwell, Lanarkshire. The room at Store Place was immediately above the Company’s Recreation Hall (this is remembered in the article on Matilda Fletcher). However, the families could hardly have settled in when Jonas Šugžda was permanently incapacitated in a pit accident. This extract from a newspaper gives the details:

SCOTSMAN – Thursday, 5 October 1911

❝ Colliery Cage Accident at Bothwell.— A serious cage accident occurred at Bent Coal Company’s No 1 Pit, Palace Colliery, Bothwell, early yesterday morning, 8 men being injured, 5 of them so seriously as to necessitate their removal to Glasgow Royal Infirmary. […] The depth of the shaft is close on 100 fathoms (600 feet) and shortly before 6 o’clock the lowering of the dayshift had been begun. Four sets had been successfully lowered, but on the cage containing eight men going down for the fifth time, the engineman in charge lost control of the winding engine when it was about half way down, and it fell with a crash to the bottom, a distance of about 300 feet, the men being thrown in every direction. Medical aid and ambulance waggons were at once summoned, and the injured, on being brought to the surface, had their wounds dressed, and those more seriously injured were at once sent to Glasgow Royal Infirmary. The cage was badly damaged by the fall.
—
The Injured
Adam Barr (70), serious internal injuries, and removed to the Royal Infirmary in a critical condition. [died.]
John Suggistaff (41), left leg badly smashed and likely to require amputation; removed to Royal Infirmary.
Charles Wright (25), right knee dislocated and fracture; removal to Royal Infirmary
James Mullen (17), fracture of the left thigh; removal to Royal Infirmary.
Thomas Walker (27), fractured thigh and compound fracture of the leg; removed to Royal Infirmary
Edward Hasson (26), generally bruised; removed home
James McMahon (20), generally bruised: removed home
William McCulloch, generally bruised; removed home.❞

As this report suggested, Jonas did have his leg amputated, and his days as a hewer were now at an end. Another report a few days later in the Hamilton Advisor gives some additional details:

HAMILTON ADVERTISER – Saturday, 7 October 1911

❝ Cage Accident at Hamilton Palace Colliery – Eight Men Injured.— The village of Bothwellhaugh, hitherto immune from any serious colliery accidents, was on Wednesday morning startled by the report that the cage of No 1 pit had got beyond control, and had gone to the bottom of the shaft with eight men. […] eight men were injured, some of them severely, but there were no fatalities. The lowering of the dayshift men and the raising of the back shift had begun, and four times the cage had descended safely with its living freight of workers — forty in all. Eight men entered the cage for the fifth “tow” as the lowering is technically called, and all went well until the cage had got near the bottom, when control of the cage seemed to have been lost for the moment and it descended to the ground with great force. Immediately Mr Stewart Thomson … summoned … the ambulance waggons. The injured had their wounds dressed, and those more seriously injured were at once sent to Glasgow Royal Infirmary. The following is the list of the injured men:–

[…]  John Suggistaff  (41), left leg fractured.

[…] Had the accident to the cage occurred when the fourth tow was descending, the result might have been far more disastrous, as four men were then ascending on the other cage, which was drawn up the the whorles by the force of the fifth descent, when, fortunately, the up-coming cage was empty. The engineman, Richard Leghorn, has been regarded as a very capable man, and has been in the employment of the Bent Coal Company for the last two years. The injured men in Glasgow Royal Infirmary were last night reported all making satisfactory progress.❞

The newspaper report published on the Scottish Mining Accident website for Adam Barr (72) is as follows:

❝ He [Adam Barr] and other seven men were being lowered in the shaft to their work, when the winding engineman failed to check the speed of the descending cage sufficiently, and it struck the cage violently. The ascending cage was taken up against the pulley, but fortunately no one was in it. Deceased died on the 7th October, and all the other men were more or less injured.

From the Main Body of report: Overwinding — An accident occurred from this cause at Hamilton Palace Colliery belonging to Messrs. The Bent Coal Company, Limited, on October 4th, causing the death of an oncostman and injuries of a more or less serious nature to seven men who were in the descending cage. The depth from the surface to the seam to which these men were being lowered is 95 fathoms. Nothing was wrong in any way with the winding engine or gear and the accident was solely due to a mistake on the part of the winding engineman. He had previously been employed at a shaft 160 fathoms in depth, and, I think, in a moment of forgetfulness, he allowed the engine to run as if he had been at the deeper shaft. Neither a detaching hook nor an automatic controlling device to prevent overspeed was in use. If the latter had been in operation with this engine, there is little doubt, I think, that the overspeed control would have been brought into operation by the steam being automatically cut off, and the brakes applied On the cage reaching the predetermined point.in the shaft, and the cage would, in consequence, have been brought to a standstill, and the accident prevented.❞

Jonas may have lost his leg in October, but on 16 December, his step-daughter, Annie, gave birth to the first of her three children: Matilda Zinkewicius,⁹Source: Zinkewicius, Matilda 1911 Scotland Statutory Births; 625/1 580; Bothwell, Lanarkshire. who would later be known as Tillie Fletcher (read her story here). It’s not clear whether Jonas was able to continue in some capacity with the Bent Mining Company, but he and Petronėlė continued to live at Nº 13 Park Place for the remainder of their lives. Annie had two more children in short order: Jaroslaw (5 Apr 1913, later known as Russell Fletcher);¹⁰Source: Zinkiewicz, Jaroslaw; 1913 Scotland Statutory Births; 625/1 167; Bothwell, Lanarkshire. and Malvina (25 Feb 1915).¹¹Source: ZIinkewicius, Malvina; 1915 Scotland Statutory Births; 625/1 111; Bothwell, Lanarkshire.  All these children were born at Nº 2 Store Place, and the 1915 Valuation Rolls for Lanarkshire show the families living at those addresses. However, World War One had started six months before Malvina was born, and this would lead to dramatic consequences for Annie and her family.

The Conventionists

In 1917, with the war dragging on and hundreds of thousands of men dead, the British government signed an agreement with the Russian Provisional Government, which was formed in March 1917 upon the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II. This treaty required that all male Russian citizens resident in Great Britain, aged 18 to 41, be liable for conscription into the British Army, or be deported to serve in the Russian Army (read Murdoch Rodgers’ article The Lithuanians for a fuller account of the times). This caused enormous turmoil and division within the Lanarkshire Lithuanian community, with the Church advising the men to join the British Army, while the Socialists and women’s groups opposed the measure. There were about 1,800 Lithuanian men liable to the conscription order and, of these, 1,100 chose to return to Lithuania to join the Russian army. This contingent departed in November, leaving 200 dependent families behind without visible means of support — among these ‘Conventionists’ was 32-year-old Jonas Zinkevičius. By the time these men arrived back under Russian jurisdiction, the Provisional Government had fallen, and the Bolsheviks were in control. Only a third of these men would ever return to Scotland.

Annie was now left at Store Place with three children and the prospect of no income. Neither the Russian nor (at first) the British authorities would accept responsibility for their maintenance or their repatriation. However, by the end of December, the British relented and, for a while, paid allowances of 12/6d for a wife, and 2/6d per child. On his departure, Jonas had instructed Annie that, should he not return, she was not to bring the children up as Catholics. Her son, Russell, remembered that, in the following years, the local priest “made life hard for Annie” — the whole family from that point seems to have parted ways with the Catholic Church. However, a surprising consideration of these events is that Annie’s half-brothers, Joe and Barney, did not join the Conventionists, nor the British Army. Given that they were respectively aged 22 and 19, it is hard to understand how both avoided conscription or deportation. One possibility might be that because their father was now an invalid, at least one of them was exempted to support his parents — but that’s no more than conjecture. Barney, though, seemed to become more or less invisible to authorities for the rest of his life.

While Annie was coming to terms with her new situation, her brother Joe, firmly remaining ‘un-conscripted’, married Euphemie “Phemie” McCaskill a few weeks later on New Year’s Eve:

1917 SCOTLAND MARRIAGES: Blythswood, Glasgow ¹²Source: Sugzda, Joseph & McCaskill, Euphemia; 1918 [for 1917] Scotland Statutory Marriages; 644/10 0034; Blythswood, Glasgow.

married: 31st December 1917
at: 21 Hope Street, Glasgow
—
Joseph Sugzda (Bachelor), Coalminer
of: 13 Park Place, Bothwell Haugh, by Bothwell    age: 23     
father: John Sugzda, Coalminer
mother:  Sarah M.S. Milninkutie   [Petronėlė Melnikaitytė]
—
Euphemia McCaskill (Spinster), Domestic Servant
of: 16 Haugh Place, Bothwell Haugh, by Bothwell    age: 21     
father: Duncan McCaskill, Pithead Worker
mother:  Mary McCaskill M.S. Gray
—
By declaration in presence of: Bernard Sugzda, Coalminer
and Janet McCaskill, Domestic Servant
Warrant of Sheriff Substitute of Lankashire; December 31st 1917

As we can see, Joe and Barney have clearly not been deported — and they are coal miners, not soldiers in the British Army. We also have the first marriage of a family member outside the Church. “By declaration”, with a sheriff’s warrant, was a legal form of marriage in Scotland at that time, and that is how all of this family’s marriages in Scotland were conducted thereafter. Joe and Phemie had their first child (John) in November 1918, just a few days before the armistice was signed to end The Great War — and, the following year, the community saw some of the Conventionists returning to Scotland — Jonas Zinkevičius was not among them.

Many of those who had chosen service in the Red Army were stranded in Russia after the Revolution, and hundreds of their dependent families back in Lanarkshire faced eviction from the company-owned housing — Annie included. When the British government ended the Treasury allowances in March 1920, many women and children were left with little choice but to return to Lithuania, and about 600 of them were repatriated by the end of that month.

It is thought that Annie had at one time packed ready to go as well, but we do know, however, that her younger half-brother, Johnny, had ‘moved’ into Nº 2 Store Place, pretending to live there so as to keep the  company-provided house for Annie and the three children. In the 1920 Valuation Rolls, he is registered as John Zincavish, miner.¹³Source: Zincavish, John; 1920 Valuation Roll; VR010700341-/58; Bothwell, Lanarkshire. Annie remained in Scotland.

The 1921 Census

At the end of December 2022, the Scottish government released the images for the 1921census, which was taken on 19 June of that year. This census was nearly two months late due to the wide scale industrial unrest at the time. On 15 April 1921, which was later called ‘Black Friday’, the leaders of the transport and rail unions decided not to support strike action being taken by National Union of Miners, a decision seen by many in the labour unions as a breach of solidarity with the striking miners, and by many as downright betrayal. Our Šugžda family were all still in Bothwellhaugh at this time (direct ancestors in purple):

1921 SCOTLAND CENSUS: 13 Park Place, Bothwellhaugh, Lanarkshire ¹⁴Source: SUIGEZDA, James; 1921 Scotland Census; 625/1 2/ 18 & 19; Bothwell, Lanarkshire.

Jomas Suigžda; Head; 48 yrs, 8 mths; Mar.; Coal Miner, Hewer (Unable to Work); Bent Colliery. Co.; Resident; born Lithuania, Russia
Patrone Suigžda [Melnikaitytė]; Wife; 52 yrs, 8 mths; Mar.; Home Duties; Resident; born Lithuania, Russia
Bronius Suigžda; Son; 25 yrs, 5 mths; Single; Coal Miner, Hewer (Worker); Bent Colly. Co. Ltd.; Resident; born Lithuania, Russia
Patrone Suigžda; Daur.; 19 yrs, 8 mths; Single; Brick Worker (Worker); Resident; born Lithuania, Russia
Jomas Suigžda; Son; 17 yrs; Single; Coal Miner, Hewer (Worker); Bent Colly. Co. Ltd.; Resident; born Lithuania, Russia
Alex. Suigžda; Son; 11 yrs, 4 mths; Both parents alive; Scholar; born Bothwell Parish, Lanarkshire

First to note from this record is that all those in employment are marked as “Worker”, unlike our McKay relatives who were living at Bothwell Park Rows just 2 km (1.5 miles) north of Bothwellhaugh. The McKays (who were known to be very active trade unionists) were all marked as “Out of Work”, which probably indicates they were on strike. Either the Hamilton Palace mine workers were not on strike, or the Šugžda boys were strike breakers — however, all other miners on the same census page are also marked as “Worker”, so this is not clear. Also to note is that the Šugždas are no longer recorded as ‘Polish Russians’, but now as ‘Lithuanian Russians’ — and although the name spelling is weird, the enumerator made an attempt to put a diacritical mark over the ‘z’! Wonders will never cease.

The two married children were both living nearby with their own families in 1921:

1921 SCOTLAND CENSUS: 2 Store Place, Bothwellhaugh, Lanarkshire ¹⁵Source: Zinkavich, Ona [Zinkevičius]; 1921 Scotland Census; 625/1 1/ 23; Bothwell, Lanarkshire.

Ona Zinkavich [Zinkevičius / Simanavičiūtė]; Head; 29 yrs, 4 mths; Mar.; Home Duties; Resident; born Lithuania, Russia
Matilda Zinkavich; Daur.; 9 yrs, 6 mths; Both parents alive; Scholar; born Bothwell Parish, Lanarkshire
Jaraslovas Zinkavich ; Son; 8 yrs, 3 mths; Both parents alive; Scholar; born Bothwell Parish, Lanarkshire
Malvina Zinkavich ; Daur; 6 yrs, 4 mths; Both parents alive; Scholar; born Bothwell Parish, Lanarkshire

1921 SCOTLAND CENSUS: 17 Square Place, Bothwellhaugh, Lanarkshire ¹⁶Source: Sugzda, Joseph; 1921 Scotland Census; 625/1 1/ 17 & 18; Bothwell, Lanarkshire.

Joseph Sugzda [Šugžda]; Head; 26 yrs, 6 mths; Mar.; Coal Miner, Hewer (Worker); Bent Colliery. Co.; Resident; born Lithuania, Russia
Euphemia Sugzda [McCaskill]; Wife; 25 yrs, 4 mths; Mar; Home Duties; born Bothwell Parish, Lanarkshire
John Sugzda; Son; 2 yrs, 8 mths; Both parents alive; born Bothwell Parish, Lanarkshire
Mary Sugzda; Daur.; 1 yr, 4 mths; Both parents alive; born Bothwell Parish, Lanarkshire
Sarah Sugzda; Daur.; 2 months; Both parents alive; born Bothwell Parish, Lanarkshire

Death in the family

It was not till June or July 1922 that Annie had any news on her husband’s fate — and the news was not good:

This certificate is given to citizen Annie Zinkevičius, wherein it is certified that her husband, John Zinkevičius of the government of Suvalki in Lithuania, was admitted to Soviet Hospital Nº 15 on December 7th 1921 after a relapse into illness from which he had been suffering, namely Typhus. He died on December 12th 1921 in above mentioned hospital.

Where Jonas had been in the four years from December 1917 to December 1921 is completely unknown; however, from this letter, it seems reasonable to assume that he had been serving in the Red Army during the post-Revolution Civil War — why else would he die in a Soviet hospital, and have the authorities take the time to advise his next-of-kin? Jonas and Petronėlė were still living at 13 Park Place at this time, while Joe and Phemie had added three more children to their family: Mary (1920); Sarah (1921) and Euphemia “Pat” (May 1922) — but, in August 1922, while Annie was still grieving, Joe left for New Jersey, USA, never to return.

---

PART C: The Years 1922–1950

The story so far: My great-grandmother, Petronėlė Melnikaitytė, was born in 1864 on the Sakalupis Estate in south-western Lithuania. She married Pranciškus Simanavičius in 1886 and had three children, two of whom died as infants. Pranciškus died somewhere between 1890 and 1893, so Petronėlė then married my great-grandfather, Jonas Šugžda, a farmer at Lauckaimis, and had another six children between 1894 and 1901 (one was my grandmother, Petronėlė, and two died young). In about 1903, this family fled Lithuania for Scotland.

The Šugžda family made its way to Bellshill, Lanarkshire, where Jonas worked as a coal miner until 1911. In that year, the oldest daughter, Ona (aka “Annie”) married a Pole, Jonas Zinkevičius, just before they all moved to Bothwellhaugh, a nearby mining village. In October 1911, Jonas Šugžda lost a leg in a mining accident at Bothwellhaugh. Annie had three children before her husband left to serve with the Russian Army in 1917, but he died of typhus in 1921 without returning. Now the boys start heading for Bayonne, New Jersey:

The Family Disperses:

As mentioned above, Joe Sugzda had migrated to the USA in 1922. His wife, Phemie, and their four children sailed on the S.S. “Cameronia” in April 1923 to join him at 35 West 47th Street, Bayonne, New Jersey, and his brother Barney followed, via Canada, in April 1924. Coincidently, just as some members of this branch of our family were heading for America, some of the McKay family (then living in Bellshill and Galston) were doing the same (read about them in the article on McKay Diaspora). The 1920s were to see most of my mother’s uncles and aunts head for the New World.

The 1925 valuation rolls once again had young Johnny Shugesda living at 2 Store Place under the name “John Zincavish”, obviously still keeping the company house for Annie.¹⁷Source: Zincavish, John; 1925 Valuation Roll; VR10700401-/98; Bothwell, Lanarkshire. The coalfields of Lanarkshire would have been in turmoil during May 1926, as there was a five-day general strike throughout Britain. No doubt the two remaining Šugžda boys would have been involved, but nothing else is recorded for the family until we had a marriage in 1927 that would spell the end of Johnny’s tenure at Store Place:

1927 SCOTLAND MARRIAGES: Bothwell, Lanarkshire ¹⁸Source: Shugesda, John & Wallace, Jeanie Hill; 1927 Scotland Statutory Marriages; 625/1 99; Bothwell, Lanarkshire.

married: 20th August 1927
at: 8 Main Street, Uddingston
by Warrant of the Sheririff-Substitute of Lanarkshire
—
John Shugesda, Coal Miner (Bachelor)    age: 23
of: 13 Park Place, Bothwell Haugh, Bothwell
father: John Shugesda, Coal Miner
mother:  Patrone Shugesda M.S. Menikaitis  [Melnikaitytė]
—
Jeanie Hill Wallace, Pithead worker (Spinster)   age: 20    
of: 23 Haugh Place, Bothwell Haugh, Bothwell
father: Andrew Wallace, Coal Miner
mother:  Isabella Wallace M.S. Donnelly
—
By declaration in presence of:
George Roberston Foyer, 1 Square Place, Bothwellhaugh
Jessie McGunn Wallace or Foyer, 1 Square Place, Bothwellhaugh

Shortly after their marriage, Johnny and Jeanie had their first child, Sadie, who years later was temporarily to be the main beneficiary of my grandfather’s will! (More about that in another article.) Jeanie must have been five months pregnant when she married, and it seems they both lived with my great-grandparents at 13 Park Place for the next couple of years.

However, sometime between February and October 1929, when Jeanie was pregnant with their second child, Johnny left his family and travelled to the US to join his two brothers. We’re not sure how or exactly when he departed, but there was another marriage and birth in that year — and this was much more important to my own story:

1929 SCOTLAND MARRIAGES: Bothwell, Lanarkshire ¹⁹Source: McKAY, George Brown & SUGSDAITE, Petronele Juze; 1929 Scotland Statutory Marriages; 625/1 16; Bothwell, Lanarkshire.

married: 23rd February, 1929
at: 8 Main Street, Uddingston
by Warrant of the Sheriff-Substitute of Lanarkshire
—
George Brown McKay, Railway Surfaceman (Bachelor)    
of: 408 Allison Street, Govanhill, Glasgow     age: 28
father: Andrew McKay, Coal Miner
mother: Lizzie McKay M.S. Brown
—
Petronele Juze Sugsdaite, Brickfield worker (Spinster) 
of: 13 Park Place, Bothwell Haugh, Bothwell   age: 21
father: Jonas Sugzda, Coal Miner
mother: Petronele M.S. Meliniskaityte
—
by declaration in presence of:
Anthony Donnachie, 4 Laighmuir Street, Uddingston
Matilda Zinkewicius, 2 Store Place, Bothwellhaugh

 

This is my grandparents’ marriage (see right), and again by declaration. They made their home close to where George had been living with some of his brothers at Govanhill in Glasgow. One of the witnesses at their marriage was my granny’s niece, Matilda (later known as Tillie Fletcher, whose story you can read here); but, in less than a month, she had left Scotland for Canada where she went to work as a nanny. She had been living at 2 Store Place; so, obviously, the widowed Annie was still in residence there. However, three days after Tillie left for Canada, and less than a month after my grandparents tied the knot, the youngest of the family, Alex, jumped aboard the S.S. “Caledonia” and sailed off to to join his brothers — Joe, Barney and Johnny — in Bayonne, New Jersey. The family would never be the same again. My granny, like Jeanie Wallace, was already pregnant (5 months) when she married, and my mother came into the world in July after much of her close family had left Scotland:

1927 SCOTLAND BIRTHS: Bothwell, Lanarkshire ²⁰Source: McKAY, Patronele Elizabeth; 1929 Scotland Statutory Births; 625/1 287; Bothwell, Lanarkshire.

Patronele Elizabeth McKay
born: 27th July, 1929  (2:10 pm)
at: 2 Store Place, Bothwell Haugh
—
father: George Brown McKay, General labourer
mother: Patronele Juze McKay M.S. Sugzdaite
domicile: 81 Govanhill Street, Govanhill, Glasgow
married: 23rd February, 1929    at: Uddingston
—
informant: George Brown McKay, Father

I will tell more of my grandparents and parents in a different article, but of interest here is that my mother was born at her Aunt Annie’s house, even though her parents lived in Govanhill; this is the last record we have for 2 Store Place and, by the following year, someone else was living there. In October 1929, Jeanie delivered Johnny’s second child (Isabella Sugistaff)²¹Isabella’s first husband was Gordon Watt (m. 1948), and his brother’s family were murdered in their home by the infamous Glasgow serial killer Peter Manual, who was hanged in 1958 for this and other crimes. The story is told in a British TV series called “In Plain Sight” (2016). — and, in December, she sailed with her two children on the S.S. “Letita” to join her husband in New Jersey. Now, only two of the Šugžda siblings, Annie and Sarah, were left to care for their ageing parents, and neither of these now lived in Bothwellhaugh. By 1930, Annie was probably living at the Bothwell Park Farm where her son, Russell, worked for the Gibson family, and my mother’s family had moved to 63 Hamilton Street, Polmadie, Glasgow.

Final years

Sadly, just as her boys and their families had left for the New World, and her daughters had moved away, Petronėlė Melnikaitytė took a stroke and died in January 1930:

1930 SCOTLAND DEATHS: Bothwell, Lanarkshire ²²Source: SUGZDA, Patronele; 1930 Scotland Statutory Deaths; 625/1 22; Bothwell, Lanarkshire.

Patronele Sugzda
married to:
        (1) Vincas Simanawie, Farm Labourer  [Pranciškus Simanavičius]
        (2) Jonas Sugzda, Coal Miner
died: 18th January, 1930 (2:00 pm)
at: 13 Park Place, Bothwell Haugh   age: 60 years
—
father: Simonas Melinikaitis, Farm Labourer (deceased)
mother: Ona Melinikaitis M.S. Widrinskiute (deceased)  [Vidrinskaitė]
—
cause: Cerebral Haemorrhage (9 hours)    
doctor: J.A. Walls, M.B., Ch.B.
informant: Patronele Juze McKay (daughter, present)
of:  63 Hamilton Street, Polmadie, Glasgow

The spelling of names is all over the place in this record, and Petronėlė was 65, not 60. We know little of her daily life, but she had delivered eleven children and lost five. My mum always said Petronėlė had been delivered in a field where her mother was digging potatoes.  She had married and lost a husband, then married again before fleeing oppression in rural Lithuania and starting life over again as a coal-miner’s wife in troubled times. Her second husband was invalided when she was 47, and then she watched her children gradually drift away. Yet, by all accounts she was a jolly person, and a skilful home maker. Another story of her says she died with all her teeth intact, though she had only ever cleaned them with soft ash from the fireplace! I’m not sure we make many like her any more.

In 1935, Annie’s son was a “byreman” at Bothwell Park Farm, just south of Bellshill, and registered as Russell Zincavitch,²³Source: Zincavitch, Russel; 1935 Valuation Roll; VR010700607-/218; Bothwell, Lanarkshire. and we know Annie worked at that farm sometime in those years. Her daughter Malvina was living there in 1937 when she married John Whyte, but they eventually moved to Troon in Ayrshire.²⁴Source: Zinkewicius, Malvina & Whyte, John; 1937 Scotland Statutory Marriages; 644/8 1732; Blythswood, Glasgow. An interesting side note is that my mother was evacuated to stay with her Aunt Annie at Bothwell Park Farm during the Battle of Britain in 1940. She always said it was the first time she had ever tasted milk or eggs!

In April 1938, Annie remarried having been a widow for 17 years (but, effectively, husbandless for 21 years).²⁵Source: Dubickas, Vincas & Simanaviciute, Ona; 1938 Scotland Statutory Marriages; 647/0 104; Hamilton, Lanarkshire. She married a divorcee, Willie Dubickas, and they lived for some years at 60 New Orbison Rows in Bellshill. Her son, Russell, married Jessie Yokubaitis (aka Grant),²⁶Source: Fletcher, Russell & Grant, Jessie; 1938 Scotland Statutory Marriages; 644/8 2276; Blythswood, Glasgow. four months after his mother married Willie — Jessie is an older half-sister to Alex Grant (born Aleksandras Pridatkas), and I have a something to say about him in my article on the Lithuanian Language. Jessie’s father was also a Conventionist who had died in a Russian camp without ever returning to his family.

While the rest of the family were getting on with their lives in New Jersey, old Jonas was now alone at Park Place, and he finally succumbed to a heart attack in 1941:

1941 SCOTLAND DEATHS: Bothwell, Lanarkshire ²⁷Source: SUGZDA, Jonas; 1941 Scotland Statutory Deaths; 625/1 111, Bothwell, Lanarkshire.

Jonas Sugzda, Coal Miner – Hewer
Widower of Patronele Menkaitis
died: 3rd September 1941 (6:10 pm)
at: 13 Park Place, Bothwell Haugh    age: 72 years
—
father: Jurgis Sugzda, Farmer (deceased)
mother: Agota Sugzda M.S. Klimaitė (deceased)
—
cause: Myocarditis, heart failure
informant: John Shugesda (son)
of: 147 Hamilton Road, Bellshill

This record is the first we have that tells us anything about Jonas Šugžda’s parents, and their names are not to be found in the old parish records of Vladislavov in Lithuania. One story my mother used to tell was that Jonas actually died from hiccups — when he was injured in the mining cage collapse (1911), one of his upper leg bones had been pushed up behind his rib cage, and on a particularly violent hiccup, that bone touched his heart and stopped it. I’ll leave it to the reader to evaluate the plausibility of this story.

One thing you may have noticed in the death certificate is that the informant was John Shugesda, the son who left to join his brothers in 1929. Well, John and his wife Jeanie had returned to Scotland in May 1931, just after his mother died, and they lived at 60 New Orbison Rows, Bellshill, with their family. This is the address his half-sister Annie and her new husband (Willie Dubickas) lived at in 1938, so there must be a connection. After 40 years, only Annie, Sarah and Johnny were left of the family in Scotland.

The next page contains a summary of the lives of my grandmother’s parents and her siblings; it also examines the spellings and pronunciation of the Lithuanian names in our family. ➤