Andrew Kapochunas: "How to Find an Image of Ancestral Eastern- or Central-European Towns on Antique Topographic Maps”

Sponsored in partnership with California, Chicago, New York, Philip Lee Phillips, Rocky Mountain, and Texas Map Societies.

Location: Zoom

Time:  7:00 PM ET/ 6:00 PM CT/ 5:00 PM MT/ 4:00 PM PT

Title: “How to Find an Image of Ancestral Eastern- or Central-European Towns on Antique Topographic Maps”

Speaker: Andrew Kapochunas, Secretary of New York Map Society, member of Lithuanian Cartographic Society, retired data and processing consultant

Summary: Andrew’s presentation will provide step-by-step directions anyone can follow for finding images of even the smallest villages and shtetls on incredibly detailed online 19th to early 20th century topographical maps created by government and military surveyors. His method will be compared to that recommended by the Library of Congress.

Bio: Andrew Kapochunas was born in 1947 at a Displaced Persons Camp in Southern Germany, his family having fled west from Nazi-occupied Lithuania in 1944 as Russian forces approached. His family was allowed to immigrate to New York City in 1949, where he still lives. After receiving a degree in Biology and Art from City College of New York, he worked as a writer, editor and publisher, pivoted to direct marketing, and then spent 23 years as a consumer/business data/processing consultant, including at Dun & Bradstreet, where he was awarded patents for domestic and global address maintenance. 

In 1988, his daughter’s curiosity about her background led him to become interested in his ancestral roots. He began collecting antique maps of the area of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and, with the advent of the Internet, also began collecting images of maps of that area. He built a website in 2008, LithuanianMaps.com, which, by the time it went static in 2021 (because its platform ceased to be updatable) contained 4,330 mostly high-definition and downloadable images, as well links to his many published articles on the history of the maps of the Lithuanian area. The images and text on that still active site were largely duplicated in 2024 to one hosted by the Lithuanian Cartographic Society: lietuvoskartografija.lt/lithuanianmaps/, with financial support from Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which considers it a national resource. He became Secretary of the New York Map Society in 2014, focusing on management of the member list, program development and outreach. Andrew began giving map-related presentations in 2013 at venues such as Seton Hall University and the New York Public Library, and to in-person and virtual audiences ranging from collectors, cartographers, UN ambassadors interested in the historical relationship of their countries to Lithuania, and to genealogical groups whose members are interested in locating ancestral villages in Eastern Europe.

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