Liber Defunctorum

Parish death registers are among the most genealogically and historically significant documents produced by immigrant Catholic communities. This Liber Defunctorum captures the mortality record of a Lithuanian parish in Detroit — a city that became one of the most important centers of Lithuanian American life in the twentieth century. The names recorded here, many Latinized from Lithuanian originals or anglicized under assimilation pressure, represent first- and second-generation immigrants whose passage through American life left few other documentary traces. The cemeteries recorded — Holy Cross (Sta. Crucis), Woodmere, Mount Olivet — remain active Detroit-area Catholic cemeteries where descendant communities still seek ancestors.

Beyond genealogy, the register documents the demographic structure of a Lithuanian immigrant parish through decades spanning the interwar period and World War II. The ages at death, parental lineages, and spousal relationships encoded in the Latin columns allow reconstruction of family networks, migration chains, and community cohesion. The visible minister's hand — consistent across hundreds of entries — attests to the continuity of pastoral care within this community. For Lithuanian American families, researchers, and heritage institutions, this volume represents irreplaceable primary evidence of a generation that built and sustained Lithuanian Catholic life in Detroit.

Institutional Catholic sacramental recordkeeping within a Lithuanian immigrant parish community; the register preserved individual and family identity, religious continuity, and communal memory for a diaspora population navigating assimilation pressure.