One Year

Hello Cousins, Happy New Year,

This website has been up and running for a little more than one year. I cannot say that it has been the smashing success I wanted, but maybe I should just be more patient. I had hoped for greater participation on your part, but maybe I have not offered enough.

I have asked for each of your to subscribe to the site, which you have done, but there is a second step to the subscription. When I confirm the subscription, you should receive an email. There is a link in this email that, when clicked, allows you to create your own posts. These are not just comments, but actual content such as I produce. Admittedly, at this still early stage, your post will not be published immediately. I must okay it for it to be published, but unless you submit a picture of yourself with a silly beer hat, I will most likely publish the posts or otherwise move the information to the appropriate place on the site.

In your own posts, you may provide your own lineage and where it connects with mine. In your own posts, you may provide pictures of yourself, your parents, and grandparents that I will place on the picture page. My original goal was to allow more and more access to the publishing features at this site, i.e. you can publish your own posts and start your own pages without any intervention from me. Please remember this is the Ragusin Family website and I am only one part of this family.

I would like to see pictures of you (and your non-Ragusin spouses), and your children (who by my definition are all Ragusins). You may also wish to provide collateral lines to my Ragusin lineage giving your parents and grandparents as appropriate. If you choose this option, please remember people’s privacy. I have chosen to put my date and place of birth and father’s name on this website, you or others might not be so willing.

I know at least one of us has written up some of the history of our Ragusin family on “the farm.” Perhaps the youngsters have not heard these tales and please remember it is part of what made us us. I also know that at least one of us is a published author, and, if I am not mistaken, I think some of our family history made into her last book. Has the Ragusin family name popped up in literature? I know of at least one instance. I also know of at least one author named Ragusin (American), but he is long dead.

As I was typing, I thought of something else. Perhaps a youngster or two can convince their school to give them extra credit, or community service credit, for helping to maintain this site. Perhaps they could gain English credit by correcting my misspellings and grammatical mistakes. Perhaps they could get computer science credit by improving this site–double columns, more color, etc. Perhaps they could get social studies credit because this is a historical/genealogical site. There is even potential for a foreign language credit. So far I have had found records in English, Croatian, Italian, and Latin

I believe the future is bright. I hope there is greater participation and contribution by each of you, especially the youngsters. In return I can grant greater access, editorial rights, and, ultimately, shared control of the site. I do not mind giving up nearly all control, because I prefer to research the family, rather than write about it. I also intend to keep asking our distant Ragusin cousins to join. This is distant in terms of our lineage (third, fourth, or fifth cousins) and in terms of being from other countries.

Perhaps we can add additional pages to the site. Off the top of my head, I can think of a government service (all levels) page that could include military. Other ideas are an education page or an occupation page. We can include any pages we want that can best describe the Ragusins.

On my part, I am now working on finding all the Ragusins from the towns of Osor and Mali Losinj in Croatia. For some reason Osor is almost never mentioned in immigration records, but one of its suburbs, Nerezine, is mentioned. Believe it or not, a second man named John Ragusin (who also had a son named John), was living in Chicago at the same time as our grandfather was living there with his son John. The other John Ragusin was from Nerezine. I am in communication with one of his descendants and hope her family will participate shortly. Although our ancestors came from Veli Losinj (Greater Losinj), the neighboring town of Mali Losinj (Lesser Losinj) has many Ragusin families as well. I am slowly preparing a list of all the Ragusins from these two locations, and, at least, in the case of Osor, have identified which Ragusins came to America.

I will continue to maintain this site and added to it. I hope that each and everyone of you choose to contribute as well. I especially want the youngsters to engage. Myself and my first cousins are not getting any younger…. Do we want this site to continue into the future? I know I do.

Copyrighted by Thomas John Ragusin 14 Jan 2023