The title should read: What have I been doing lately? And why have I not posted any more Ragusin genealogy on this site? Well…there are a number of reasons, explanations, or excuses (take your pick). Here they are.
Probably the number one reason is I am lazy and a procrastinator. I would rather watch TV or play computer games than do any real work. In my defense I am retired. If I have something to do today I usually just say “manana” (I spent a lot of time in Latin America).
The second reason is everyday life. We all have this one. Grocery shopping, shoveling snow, cutting the lawn, etc. can all eat into our fun time. In addition you can refer back to reason number one and I usually decide to watch TV and cut the lawn tomorrow (hoping for rain and further procrastination).
The third reason is actually genealogical. When I started doing genealogy I found my parents, their parents, their parent’s parents, and so on. I did not worry about or record aunts/uncles, great aunts/great uncles, and so on. If they were not my direct ancestors they were not in my notes or in my tree. My family tree had a lot of very long and very skinny branches. Then I did DNA testing. There are only a small number of people who have the same parents (and therefore the same tree) as I do. But I had all these DNA matches that I had to figure out how we were related–if, in fact, we were related. Well… all those aunts and uncles, etc. are important when it comes to DNA. Now I have to go back and find all of my direct ancestor’s siblings, children, grandchildren, etc. up to present day. Those present-day descendants of my direct ancestor’s siblings are my DNA matches.
This is a lot of work (see reason one again). My father had eight siblings and one half-sibling (yes I have DNA matches–plural–through this line) that lived to adulthood. I have to find their spouses, if they married, and then all of their children. Then I have to find the spouses for their children and their children’s children. Admittedly I know these people and could write down most of this from memory. What I did not remember or did not know could usually be found on line. Yes a good number of my cousins and their kids have DNA tested.
My father’s father had only one sibling who had a child (I believe). That mother and child are buried in Australia. Did that child have children? I do not know, but I do have DNA matches to people from Australia. My father’s grandfather had six siblings that lived to adulthood all in Punat, Croatia. These six and their descendants are all found in my “Jacob Ragusin and Margarita Orlic” post. However, there are issues. The birth records dated after 1870 for Punat, Croatia were not filmed by the Mormons. Since, in most cases, I want to know their descendants here in the U.S., the 1870 date is one generation too early to match up with most U.S. immigration records and continue up to the present day. I have to wait and hope that my DNA match has an accurate family tree that I can verify and then confirm the match. This has happened. I mentioned several cases in my “The Big Lie: Part 5” post.
The “Jacob Ragusin and Margarita Orlic” post also completes the next two generations with the same 1870 issue mentioned in the previous paragraph. However, Jacob was born in Veli Losinj, Croatia. Unfortunately, there is a crucial gap in the birth records (after 1734) so finding Jacob’s siblings has been nearly impossible. Continuing to find the descendants of the two siblings of Jacob I have identified has been difficult. If a descendant moves to a different town then I most likely lose that branch completely.
But that is not all. If my premise for this website–all Ragusin’s in the world are related–is correct, then all the Ragusin’s I am finding in all the towns in Croatia must all link back to a single individual. At this time, the earliest individual I have positively identified is Anton Ragusin who died between 1579 and 1582 in Veli Losinj, Croatia. I now have Anton’s last will and testament and the “probate.” I am hopeful that this new information will allow me to connect myself and others to Anton. I have already found that the first Ragusin’s in Mali Losinj came from Veli Losinj and the same is true with Osor/Nerezine. That is why I mentioned I would be working on those towns and I have DNA matches to descendants of Ragusin’s in each of those towns. I also have a DNA match to a descendant of a Ragusin in a “suburb” of Veli Losinj called Ilovik. All of these records are in a combination of Croatian, Italian, and Latin–sometimes all on the same page. I must state I had to start all these studies from scratch. I like doing this type of research and believe I am very good at it, but I just got tired and looked for something else to do.
This bring up reason number four. This reason is also genealogical. This website is for descendants of a Ragusin and their spouses (who may be doing the genealogy). But I am only one half Ragusin. My father was only one half Ragusin. His father was only one half Ragusin. Put differently one of my two parents was a Ragusin, one of my four grandparents, one of my eight great grandparents, and so on. The further back I push my tree (i.e. the more successful I am genealogically) the smaller the percentage of the Ragusin family it contains. I am a genealogist and my goal is to have all the branches of my family tree of equal length. Availability and access to appropriate records means I can never accomplish this goal.
So when a new batch of records becomes available I jump on them. Several years ago vital records back to the 1500’s became available for Veli Losinj and I was able to push my Ragusin line four generations with another four pending. After that, as a break, I spent some time finding siblings for many of my other branches. Availability of records meant I could not expand my German and Italian branches. This was particularly disturbing because the German and Italian DNA matches were piling up. Then I received some Croatian notarial records for Veli Losinj that contained Anton Ragusin’s will and probate, among other Ragusin records. Although I can read enough Croatian in either alphabet to exploit birth, marriage and death records, notarial records are multiple paragraphs. I had to translate every word. It was difficult and time consuming. So when a new batch of Italian records fell into my lap I jumped at the chance to do something different.
So there you have my four reasons/explanations/excuses for not posting more on this website. Trust me when I say that I am making progress.
Copyrighted 26 Jun 2024 by Thomas John Ragusin
ragusinfamily.com 