Read Me:

Things will change:

  1. WordPress.com was used to create this website and I started learning it in December 2021 and am still in the process of learning how to use it.
  2. I am proud of what I have created and I hope each of you can gain something positive from it.
  3. Although proud of my work, I know it can be made better. Learning how to make it better will take some time. New pages will be added, things will moved around, and on occasion the site will be unavailable for maintenance.
  4. WordPress is designed with several levels of subscribers or followers. I hope that soon I can elevate all subscribers to contributor level (able to create your own posts but not publish them) and then to author level (able to publish your own posts). The editor level has even more access but that is in the future.

Civility Rules:

  1. Religion will not be discussed except as it applies to our ancestors.
  2. Politics will not be discussed.
  3. Ethnicity will not be discussed except as it applies to our ancestors.
  4. If you disagree with what someone wrote (including me) critique the work not the person.

General Rules:

  1. This is not a social media site. There is no need to comment on or like/dislike every single post or every other comment.
  2. If you find a post or comment useful for your own research then thank the author and describe how it helped. All genealogists like a pat on the back when they can get it and maybe they have more information you could use.
  3. Do not share any content on this site with any social media site. I place my research results on this site freely. Any of you are welcome to use them, copy them, or download them (I think that is possible). I hope each of you feels the same way.

Personal Name Conventions:

I will write in American English which is my native language. I can read some Italian and Latin. I can read some genealogical Croatian and have taught myself to transliterate Glagolitic. I have corresponded both electronically and via snail mail in English, Spanish, French, German, and Italian. Otherwise I will use google translator if I can.

I spell Ragusin with an “s,” because that is how my family spelled it. Raguzin family members are equally welcome. Other variant spelling may be permitted in the future.

I Anglicize all given names. I use “John” and not “Ivan,” “Giovanni,” “Joannes,” etc. Admittedly in some instances I do not know what an English equivalent might be.

I do not try to find the most ridiculous spelling of my ancestor’s name in an attempt to make them appear more unique than they already are.

I do not use nicknames or descriptive prefixes or suffixes.

I do not provide a list of variant spellings, misspellings, or bad transcriptions of any given name or surname.

I do not provide a list of a given names or surnames in various languages and alphabets.

I have chosen one way to spell each surname I encounter and stick with that. It might not be the way it was always spelled or the way your family spells it now.

I do not type with diacritical marks. For example I do not type the acute above the terminal “c” in many Croatian surnames. I transliterate this terminal letter as “c” and not “ch,” which is the correct sound. Similarly I do not use the caron above the “C” in Crikvenica and would never spell it Tsrikvenitsa, which is correct sound wise.

None of these personal name conventions apply when discussing a specific genealogical record. I transcribe a specific record as it is written–except for the diacritical marks.

Place Name Conventions:

Currently there is a genealogy-wide emphasis to be as historically accurate as possible when describing the location of events in our ancestors’ lives. This emphasis is only partially valid and obscenely time consuming.

An example of this is my grandfather’s immigration record. His recorded place of birth was described as Segna in the province of Croatia in the Kingdom of Hungary in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Is this historically accurate? Yes. Is it useful? Definitely not!

The Kingdom of Hungary and the Austro-Hungarian Empire no longer exist and birth records for the province of Croatia would not be found in the archives of the modern countries of Hungary or Austria.

Suffice to say my grandfather was born in Senj (the Croatian spelling) in what is now the country of Croatia. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS or Mormons) microfilmed the Senj Catholic parish baptismal records (also recording births) at the archives in the Croatian capital of Zagreb. Austria and Hungary are irrelevant. One reason for including a place along with the date for an event in our ancestor’s lives is for someone else to be able to find the same record if they wish. Again Austria and Hungary have nothing to do with finding the original record.