|
Post by kendjelic on Jun 28, 2011 14:02:44 GMT -5
Hey everyone, I recently discovered my roots come from Croatia, traced back to the town of Zdala and Gola along the Drava and the Hungarian border. I was able to trace my family as living here back in the mid-late 1700's. My 6g Grandparents surnames were Kendjelic naturally as well as Bosnjak.
My Great Grandfather came to the states in the very early 1900's with the surname Kendjelic. Also on some church documents from Croatia a few times the surname was spelled Kengyelics. I am trying to find the meaning of this rare last name. The closest I have found was the word "Kengyel" which means stirrup in Hungarian.
Anyone happen to know what my surname means or where it originates from?
Attached is a picture of my grandfather in case looks help associate a name with an ethnicity. This is a photo from an old drivers license, not a prison mug shot lol.
|
|
|
Post by kendjelic on Jun 28, 2011 14:05:05 GMT -5
Going to try and post the picture again. Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by terroreign on Jun 29, 2011 3:12:44 GMT -5
-ic is serbian, which means you are serb
good day
|
|
|
Post by kendjelic on Jun 29, 2011 16:38:28 GMT -5
Lol. Don't most serbian names end in ovic? So every croat that ends in ic is a serb? Come on man, looking for honest answers.
|
|
|
Post by terroreign on Jun 29, 2011 19:08:50 GMT -5
lol '-ovic'? c'mon "man" i'm being serious. ante pavelic, starcevic, mesic, gotovina, those are serbs look past the fog in your eyes.
|
|
|
Post by kendjelic on Jun 29, 2011 20:56:31 GMT -5
lol '-ovic'? c'mon "man" i'm being serious. ante pavelic, starcevic, mesic, gotovina, those are serbs look past the fog in your eyes. Ok then. No fog in my eyes but be more specific. Why is my surname serbian and whats the meaning of it. Why are you so set on it not being croatian. Less than 2 yrs ago I never even new what part of the world my name was from. I'm honstly trying to learn so legit help is appreciated.
|
|
|
Post by ulf on Jun 30, 2011 7:45:03 GMT -5
kendjelic your surname is rare, but you said they lived along the border with Hungary. I heard for such surname in Belgrade few times, so Krivosanin is right you're Serb...Welcome aboard
|
|
|
Post by terroreign on Jun 30, 2011 12:41:23 GMT -5
lol '-ovic'? c'mon "man" i'm being serious. ante pavelic, starcevic, mesic, gotovina, those are serbs look past the fog in your eyes. Ok then. No fog in my eyes but be more specific. Why is my surname serbian and whats the meaning of it. Why are you so set on it not being croatian. Less than 2 yrs ago I never even new what part of the world my name was from. I'm honstly trying to learn so legit help is appreciated. "kendje" undoubtedly has hungarian origins however the "lic" was a serbinization...this does not necessarily mean that the name is of hungarian ancestry instead that there was hungarian influence, which of course in the northern regions of the balkans there was plenty.
|
|
|
Post by kendjelic on Jun 30, 2011 15:19:48 GMT -5
OK, the surnames I have in my family tree are Kendjelic, Talan, Bogadi, Kuzmic, Bosnjak and Grabaric. Do these sound Croatian or Serbian to you both? If Serbian, what would cause them to migrate exactly to where they did in Koprivnica-Križevci county and stay there for so long? Ottoman expansion? I know the county they were in was an historic administrative county and Military Frontier zone just west of Slavonia. I wish I had all these answers, it kills me not to know my history to the fullest.
|
|
Kralj Vatra
Amicus
Warning: Sometimes uses foul language & insults!!!
20%
Posts: 9,814
|
Post by Kralj Vatra on Jul 1, 2011 3:54:35 GMT -5
Hello buddy, best thing is to travel to all those places and search by your own. You will find loads of info. Also you should start and search telephone catalogs in Croatia/Serbia/Bosnia. Grabaric, Bosnjak, Kuzmic might not help a lot since there are lots of Yugoslavs with those surnames but Kendjelic might help. Do you know anything about your grandpa religion? Anyway the gentleman in the photo looks definitely Serb, either from Bosnia or Serbia. (Real) Croats IMHO are blond like Germans. Also a good proportion of the Bosnian muslims are very blond as well.
|
|
|
Post by kendjelic on Jul 1, 2011 9:55:07 GMT -5
Hello buddy, best thing is to travel to all those places and search by your own. You will find loads of info. Also you should start and search telephone catalogs in Croatia/Serbia/Bosnia. Grabaric, Bosnjak, Kuzmic might not help a lot since there are lots of Yugoslavs with those surnames but Kendjelic might help. Do you know anything about your grandpa religion? Anyway the gentleman in the photo looks definitely Serb, either from Bosnia or Serbia. (Real) Croats IMHO are blond like Germans. Also a good proportion of the Bosnian muslims are very blond as well. Hey pyrros, thanks for the response. Traveling there unfortunately is not an option as flights from AZ to Zagreb are pretty expensive. All of the birth record forms I have from Croatia are in Latin. I believe they were Catholic. How were Serb birth records written back in the 17 and 1800's? In Latin as well?
|
|
|
Post by Croatian Vanguard on Jul 1, 2011 15:10:03 GMT -5
Hey everyone, I recently discovered my roots come from Croatia, traced back to the town of Zdala and Gola along the Drava and the Hungarian border. I was able to trace my family as living here back in the mid-late 1700's. My 6g Grandparents surnames were Kendjelic naturally as well as Bosnjak. My Great Grandfather came to the states in the very early 1900's with the surname Kendjelic. Also on some church documents from Croatia a few times the surname was spelled Kengyelics. I am trying to find the meaning of this rare last name. The closest I have found was the word "Kengyel" which means stirrup in Hungarian. Anyone happen to know what my surname means or where it originates from? Attached is a picture of my grandfather in case looks help associate a name with an ethnicity. This is a photo from an old drivers license, not a prison mug shot lol. Welcome brother. Your surname could have a Hungarian root but it was definately Croatianized/Slavicized. Doubt you are 'Serb' since there is no medieval settlement of Serbs in the Podravina area. Bosnjak is one of the most popular surnames in Croatia , even more so than in Bosnia , and even there , almost exclusively Bosnian Croats carry the name. There is a village in Slavonia called 'Bosnjak' to go along with the surname. These were Croats living along the Bosna river who moved north across the Sava in the wake of the Turkish retreat from Slavonia. 'ic' is commonly used among south Slavs , most exclusively Croats, Serbs , and Bosniaks. It indicates the 'grandson of' as opposed to -OV like in Bulgaria and Russia which indicates 'son of' or 'of (said) tribe.'
|
|
|
Post by Croatian Vanguard on Jul 1, 2011 15:13:52 GMT -5
OK, the surnames I have in my family tree are Kendjelic, Talan, Bogadi, Kuzmic, Bosnjak and Grabaric. Do these sound Croatian or Serbian to you both? If Serbian, what would cause them to migrate exactly to where they did in Koprivnica-Križevci county and stay there for so long? Ottoman expansion? I know the county they were in was an historic administrative county and Military Frontier zone just west of Slavonia. I wish I had all these answers, it kills me not to know my history to the fullest. You are correct. Serbs had no formal connection to Hungary save a couple of royal marriages and until the Serbs colonized Vojvodina starting after the Turkish invasions. Croats on the other hand have a very well documented formal history with Hungarians beginning in 1102 and even before that since Croatia's last king Zvonimir's wife was 'Jelena lijepa,' sister to the Hungarian king. The Hungarian alliance was especially significant in the Podravina region where you hail from , Slavonia , and Srijem. Some of these Serbs here have a mental complex. They like to claim things which don't belong to them - probably disgust or dissapointment of their own history - who knows? Ignore them .
|
|
|
Post by Croatian Vanguard on Jul 1, 2011 15:15:23 GMT -5
I would say that your background is 1/2 Slavono-Croatianized Hungarian ( mixed Hungarian and Pannonian Croatian) and 1/2 Slavonianized Bosnian Croat. That's pretty cool actually
|
|
|
Post by kendjelic on Jul 1, 2011 21:45:29 GMT -5
Hey thanks for the reply. God i really wish I knew the truth. I appreciate responses from both the serb and the croat side. Both sides are so passionate about their nationalities, which is a good thing. I may never know where my true nationality lies but either way, i'd be proud to be from either side. Too bad croats and serbs dont get along better. I guess it's time to contact those with the same surname on facebook.
|
|
|
Post by Croatian Vanguard on Jul 2, 2011 11:51:27 GMT -5
Google in Kendelic and almost all the top hits you get are something to do with Croats or Croatia . And you're right about the Serb v Croat stuff. It does tend to get absurd many times but for this particular conversation the Serbs started the BS . All the information I provided you about your surnames ( Kendjelic and Bosnjak) was factual to the best of my knowledge. Their 'Serb claims' are wishful thinking at best
|
|
|
Post by terroreign on Jul 14, 2011 12:28:43 GMT -5
all -ic last names are serbian...croats have no unique last names, they either have serb last names (Vuckovic, Pavelic, Starcevic, etc), Hungarian, Vlach, Slovene, or Italian last names
even mentioning anything as purely croat is roflmao hysterical, i mean let's keep in mind that the one of the chief establishers of the modern croat identity was a slovak-german lol
but we can be polite and say "yes, it is a last name of 'croatian' heritage" whatever that is worth
|
|
|
Post by Croatian Vanguard on Jul 14, 2011 12:57:45 GMT -5
all -ic last names are serbian...croats have no unique last names, they either have serb last names (Vuckovic, Pavelic, Starcevic, etc), Hungarian, Vlach, Slovene, or Italian last names even mentioning anything as purely croat is roflmao hysterical, i mean let's keep in mind that the one of the chief establishers of the modern croat identity was a slovak-german lol but we can be polite and say "yes, it is a last name of 'croatian' heritage" whatever that is worth LOL , ur such a nut its amusing . IC is universal in Slav languages to mean 'little of' or 'little from.' For people in particular it means 'grandson of' in most cases. Nothing particularly 'Serbian' ( or Croatian for that matter) about it except that the majority of Croats and Serbs keep this as a surname as opposed to Russians and Ukrainians who use it as a middle name. Almost all surnames in Croatia and Serbia have some kind of ancient local (Grdovic) , christian ( or muslim) (Filipovic, Halilovic) , or foreign root to them (Martinovic) or they are named after some occupation. ( Kovac) This is not unique to either Croats or Serbs. And as far as uniquely Croatian names. Lets look at the surnames of the original Croatian noble families : Crnkovic , Radojcic , Domagojevic , Draskovic , Subic ( incl the branches of Frankopan & Zrinski) , Gusic-Kurjakovic , Horvat-Hrvatinic , Ilocki , Kacic , Keglevic , Nelipic , Pejacevic , Trpimirovic . Not to mention the surnames we find with the notable Hrvat or Bosnjak root Hrvacic , Bosnjak , Bosnjakovic , etc. I think mentioning anything thing as 'purely Serb' is even more ridiculous , especially for you since you believe that 'Slav' and 'Serb' mean the same thing - a nameless polyglot of peoples who Westerners called 'Slaves' with no particular identity , just a common langauge and geography.
|
|
|
Post by kendjelic on Jul 15, 2011 18:05:36 GMT -5
I think I'm going to have to side with Prisojanin here. I do know enough to not say 'ic' is Croat only or Serb only. What I don't know is where my family was prior to the 1750's.
Some of my records are from Berzence, Hungary (Somogy co) and that after the Turks were kicked out of that town, Croats were invited there to sort of recolonize it. This place is very close to Zdala and Gola where my fam comes from. So who knows, they could have been in that group or they could have came from Serbia for all I know.
When I get time, I may post a pic of my Grandfather, Father and myself. To me, my Grandpap and my Dad do not look like most Croats I've seen. My dad is so dark that when coming across the border from Mexico during vacation he was stopped because they thought he was an illegal immigrant lol. My mom is super light skinned so I am not too dark myself. My dad is half Northern Italian so that might be those genes.
|
|
|
Post by Croatian Vanguard on Jul 15, 2011 18:19:11 GMT -5
I think I'm going to have to side with Prisojanin here. I do know enough to not say 'ic' is Croat only or Serb only. What I don't know is where my family was prior to the 1750's. Some of my records are from Berzence, Hungary (Somogy co) and that after the Turks were kicked out of that town, Croats were invited there to sort of recolonize it. This place is very close to Zdala and Gola where my fam comes from. So who knows, they could have been in that group or they could have came from Serbia for all I know. When I get time, I may post a pic of my Grandfather, Father and myself. To me, my Grandpap and my Dad do not look like most Croats I've seen. My dad is so dark that when coming across the border from Mexico during vacation he was stopped because they thought he was an illegal immigrant lol. My mom is super light skinned so I am not too dark myself. My dad is half Northern Italian so that might be those genes. Brother , unfortnately get used to how some Serbians are. They tend to try to claim things that don't belong to them ... as if something is lacking in their own ethnos that fills them with envy , especially towards their neighbors. Of course not every Serb is like some of these Cetniks here so keep that in mind. Personally I think it goes back to their identity-less Slav history which is why Serbs have a weaker 'united' identity today. Just my musings though , I don't claim to be a historian. And hardly anyone knows their ancestry passed a couple centuries ago , its near impossible to know since records are sparse , one can only assume. Franciscans and later land administrators kept records of baptismals and land deeds connected to my family but those only date back to about what your records date back to. Are you sure your father isn't half south Italian? On average northern Italians have a lighter complection ( left over from the Italicized Franks , Lombards , Normans , etc). Southern Italians tend to look more like Greeks and even northern Africans ( Moors) and appear darker as a result. I also have some Ukrainian ( Rusyn) and Czech in my ancestry which I think is pretty cool.
|
|