Patty Reuter William Kane In Hungarian, German, and Slavic languages the letter 'j' is pron. y. Jugoslavija = Yugoslavia And the Croatian letter 'dz^' is pron. as j. Expect the surname was actually spelled Samardz^ija (Samarjiya) In 1908 a Stepe Samardz^ija , age 19, Croatian, had emigrated from Sv. Juraj to Virginia, Saint Louis CO Minnesota. http://chamber.virginiamn.com/history/ Frank K