Help Clarifying My (Probably Serbian) Ancestry

[Jules Levin]

On 8/23/2013 10:39 AM, Andrea Gregovich wrote:
> 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.

I'm sure you'll hear from South Slav specialists, but I do have a little 
experience with genealogy:
1.  You never mentioned your family's religious tradition.  Catholic or 
Orthodox?  This is a significant, if not determinative fact.
2.  You mentioned remembering some words in the family.  You need to 
list all the south Slav words preserved in family memory.  While it may 
*really* be one language, each subgroup has a characteristic 
vocabulary.  Even in the US, Catholics, Protestants, and Jews speak the 
same language, but there are subtle differences in some vocabulary.  A 
South Slav specialist will be able to analyze the vocabulary your family 
does remember.
3.  There are other genealogy records to look for:  death records in 
your state, applications for US citizenship, etc.  These often contain 
surprising info that the family may have forgotten after the passing of 
the emigre generation.  I learned the name of my greatgrandmother's home 
village from a 1935 Illinois state death record.
Good luck,
Jules Levin
Los Angeles





>
> 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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