Directory of Croatian Surnames

Croatian most frequent first names

Books about
Croatian
Genealogy

Professional
help in
genealogical
research

Croatian Parishes Address book

Interesting links

Guestbook

Contact

For journalists

CROATIAN GENEALOGY COLUMN EXTRA

Quality time with an expert (9)

A unique wedding present

Lidija Sambunjak
professional genealogist

2 August 2010 One of my best friends got married this month. She is well situated, already has children, a nice house and a good career. So my family was wondering what would be the best thing to give her as a wedding present. She has pretty much everything, and can afford whatever she needs. What could I possibly give her which would be of any real worth to her?

Then I remembered a conversation I had had with her some time ago, where she expressed a desire to know more about her husband's family. His surname of Brandstatter has been present in Slovenia as long as family remembers, but is not of Slovene origin. She said: "I wish I could tell people where my husband's surname comes from when they ask me."

That converstion ignited an idea for a great wedding present!

In couple of weeks following that conversation I researched, called and visited the archives in order to find at least five generations of both of their families. When I compiled all the needed information I contacted a family business in the US who are experts in woving family trees onto a piece of fabric. They did an an excellent work and all that was left to do is to frame it and pack it nicely.

When their family history was presented to them at the wedding, everyone was touched! Newlyweds shed tears of joy as they were reading from the family tree about their ancestry. But not just newylweds, their entire family was amazed and deeply touched when realizing that I had found a piece of their history that they didn't even know it existed.

Below: the framed family tree of Brandstatter & Zajc families.

Recent columns by Lidija Sambunjak

New! By their noses shall they be recognized People who want their family trees to be researched come from all around the world and it's no wonder every one of them is different. But as special as family Sadar was, none were before them.(11 Oct 2010)

A joy of finding destroyed records Wars produce negative consequences on today's genealogical research, because, during wars, vital records are in a threat of destruction. (28 Feb 2010)

A postcard that revealed a family secret Old pictures and old letters can sometimes be a very good source for researching our family history. But they can also be a source of surprising revelations. (8 Dec 2010)

Pictures engraved in the stone For a family picture to be preserved for a century or longer takes a small miracle. How many of us have a picture of an ancestor born in the 19th century? Not many, I presume. (4 Sep 2010)

A unique wedding present One of my best friends got married this month. I wondered what could I possibly give her as a wedding present which would be of any real worth to her? (2 Aug 2010)

Why do grandma and grandpa have the same surname? There are parishes where you can find people with the exact same surname that are not directly related. But sometimes they are. (21 May 2010)

Death records are not easy to read, but it's not about handwriting I think we need to be grateful for our ancestors whose challenges we can hardly imagine. (15 Apr 2010)

Building family history on a firm evidence A true genealogist should base his or her research on written records, and not on questionable tales. (27 Mar 2010)

What a joy it is to connect lost relatives! It is very rewarding and often quite emotional for a researcher to witness how profound impact he or she can have on the people (6 Mar 2010)

Help saving vital records from the worms! One thing every genealogist is concerned about is the condition of the books he or she uses in the research. (21 Feb 2010)

Where did the children hide? As I was trying to find siblings of a grandfather of a family, I looked back and forth in records of many years, but with no success. (06 Feb 2010)

Be careful not to miss a widower The case was clear: the man had been married more than once, but the question was - how many times? (22 Jan 2010)

Bingo! Elderly superladies! As I exhausted all the ideas on how to continue with a paricular case, a simple phonecall saved my day. (15 Jan 2010)

Quality time with an expert Probably the best way how to learn to do our own genealogy is to watch other, more experienced genealogists doing the job, and then emulate them. (29 Dec 2009)


Creative Commons Attribution - Sambunjak Genealogy Research