Help Clarifying My (Probably Serbian) Ancestry

[Andrea Gregovich]

Hello Colleagues,

I'm doing research for some memoir/family history writing, and I'm hoping
someone can help me sort out the clues and confirm that my grandfather's
family emigrated from Serbia.  Anyone who would know for sure is long
passed.  We always said the name "Gregovich" was "Yugoslavian".  My
American-born grandfather Nick Gregovich himself referred to it this way.
Nick had pride in his heritage, though he didn't go past eighth grade in
school and didn't know that much about the specifics of the region, so
"Yugoslavian" it was.  He did speak the language, interestingly, but didn't
seem to have a lot of intellectual inquiry about things like this -- he was
a guy who worked with his hands, if that makes sense.  His eight siblings
all changed their surname, the women to their husbands names and the men to
"Gregson" to be more American.  When Yugoslavia was breaking up and I
started asking questions about where the name came from specifically in the
region, nobody still alive knew for sure.  Because the Serbs were the "bad
guys" in the news, my grandmother, then in her eighties, swore her husband
couldn't have been Serbian.  She thought they were from "a different one"
but she couldn't remember which.  "Montenegro?" I remember asking her.
"No..." she said, but couldn't go any further.  But the family emigrated to
Bisbee, Arizona, where there was a notable community of Serbian
immigrants.  As far as the museum there is concerned, if there were
Croatian immigrants they would have been a small minority.  My dad also is
fine with the Serbian designation, though his knowledge of the family's
history is only an overview.  But to complicate matters even further, the
one last detail my mom remembers is "Dubrovnik".  This was my dad's family,
however, and I'm unclear where my mom got Dubrovnik as a significant detail
and what role Dubrovnik even plays in the story.  Plus, Dubrovnik being
historically contested territory, it doesn't really help pin down a
nationality, if I understand the area correctly.

My mom did some Ancestry.com research for me and discovered that Maria and
Cedomir Gregovich (my great grandmother and grandfather) came to the U.S.
in 1897 with three children from what looked like to her (on the hand
written document) as a port or city called something like "Bocchi".  I
couldn't find a place name that looked like this, but many of these old
ship manifests and such are very hard to read, so who knows what it really
said.  Can anyone thing of a place that sounds like "Bocchi"?  That
wouldn't have necessarily been their hometown, though.

But here's where I'm wondering if the list can help me: perhaps the key to
the mystery is in Cedomir's unusual name.  In all the census records and
other documents there are several names used for him: CM, Chedomir (with an
h), Chas, Charles.  His name seems to have been a source of difficulty for
him in the new world.  It appears on his gravestone in Bisbee, Arizona as
"Cedomir".  No mark over the "C" to make it a "ch", but it's written in
Latin letters.  So on one hand, this would seem a bit more Croatian.  There
are a few gravestones in what looks to me like Serbian-Cyrillic at that
cemetery.  But there are also hints throughout the documents and family
stories that Cedomir may have struggled with culture shock and longed to
fit in in America, so I suspect the family wasn't interested in his being
remembered in Cyrillic.  He died alone in Bisbee in 1941, likely a
depressed alcoholic.  His wife had long since moved to California with
several of her children, who found a much better life there.  His obituary
suggests that his family "on the coast" made the funeral arrangements
rather than my still Gregovich grandfather, the only one who stayed in
Southern Arizona, but the one who was mostly estranged from the rest of the
family.  These were the folks who Americanized their names, so this could
also play into why they chose to spell Cedomir's name in Latin letters.
And yet, there is the omission of the "h", which makes his name look more
Slavic, and more Croatian.  And, just a thought, but perhaps there was no
allowance for an accent mark for the "C" in a 1940's cemetery in Arizona.
And, to be fair, "Chedomir" with an "h" just looks awkward and clumsy.  My
question is really a general query for anyone with more detailed knowledge
of Serbo-Croatian linguistics -- does any of this make sense, and/or point
us toward one nationality or the other?

My goal here is just to feel like I'm relatively correct in referring to
the family as "Serbian immigrants" as I write about them.  Ironically, I
spent some time in Croatia years back and people were always excited that I
had a "Croatian" name, to which I just smiled and nodded.

Thanks for anyone who waded through this, and I appreciate any and all
input in helping me solve my mystery!

Best,
Andrea Gregovich

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