PJohn27974@aol.com wrote: > > Nicholas Matcovich was from Dalmatia, and left at the age of 14. He was bn. > abt. 1832, naturalized in Plaquemine Parish, La. in 1856. He was on the > island of Eleuretha, Bhs. with his wife Eliza Carey in 1864 where they had > their first child. > I have now learned that he left from Boche del Cattaro and feel that he > lived in that region. I have traced another Matcovich family which I believe > related to my Nicholas and they left from Trieste so I feel I am getting > closer to identifying the area. I believe Ragusa may be a possibility as I > have researched another NIcholas Matcovich that was in World War 1 draft in > Skaway, Alaska and he was from Ragusa. And of course, Fiume is another > possibility. > So, is this region now known as Montenegro? And does anyone know if there > is LDS film on Ragusa? > Nicholas parents were from the Ural Mts. of Russia. I'm not sure what year > they emigrated to Austria. I am anxious to find more about them. I > understand they lived to be 110 and the other l20 yrs. I thought this > ridiculous but then I learned that there are some known facts that people > from the Ural Mt. region did live to be very old. I understand their diet was > nuts, and vegetables. > Any sugguestions as to how I can go about researcjomg this region? Phyllis You don't know the village of origin of Nicholas's parents in the Ural Mts., which are in E European Russia and NW Kazakhstan, forming, together with the Ural River, the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia and separating the Russian plain from the Siberian lowlands. The Urals extend c.1,500 mi (2,400 km) north and south from the Arctic tundra to the deserts N of the Caspian Sea. You don't even know when they emigrated to Austria. Austria-Hungary was one of the largest countries of Europe in the 19th century and at the end of WW I was split into many other countries; Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland, Soviet Union, Italy, etc. Austria had stretched from Austria to Montenegro (Crna Gora) in the Balkans, plus part of Poland and part of the Ukraine. http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/13270.html http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0850159.html http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/13269.html Boche del Cattaro (I) http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03456b.htm Montenegro http://www.montenegro.org/ If you have a great deal of money try to locate a researcher in Europe (probably in Russia) who knows English, Russian, and Uralic-Altaic languages. Was surname Matkovic' ? Spelled how in Russian (Cyrillic) and in Uralic- Altaic ? Unless Nicholas's father had been an important chieftan and written up in historical annals your researcher will find nothing. You will be be hard pressed to just research Trieste (I) Trst (C) Triest (G), Italy; Rijeka (C) Fiume (I), Istria, Austria and Italy and Croatia; and Dubrovnik (C) Ragusa (I), Austria, Italy and Croatia for the correct Matkovic' family ? The Croatian telephone directory lists : 52 surname Matkovic' under Dubrovnik region, including 13 surnames under Dubrovnik (town) 175 surname Matkovic' under Rijeka and Gorski Kotar region. 86 surname Matkovic' under Istra. Croatians emigrated early on to the Gulf States region of the U.S. Many settled in this region. And many settled in Palquemines parish, State of LA. The LDS filmed many church records for Dubrovnik/ Ragusa. The problem is there are seven sets of church records depending on religion and parish. For example, metrical books (births, marriages, deaths) for the R. C. congregation of Grad, a district of Ragusa, Dalmatien, Austria; now Dubrovnik, Croatia (1642-1885) 20 films Text in Italian and Croatian. Early records will be in Italian and later records in Croatian. The Croatia-Slavonia records microfilmed have greater linguistic diversity than for most other geographic regions. Latin, Croatian, Slovene, Serbian, German, Hungarian, or Italian are possible languages used. Italian is fairly close to Latin. Extractus e libro natorum et baptizatorum (L) (Extract from the book of those born and baptized) versus Estratto dal libro di nascita e di battesimo (I) (Extract from the book of births and baptisms) Testimonium nativatis (L) (Certificate of birth) versus Certificato di nascita (I) (Certificate of birth) or Locus et comunitas nativitatis (L) (Place and community of birth) versus Luogo e comune della nascita (I) (Place and community of birth) For over 450 years , Austria and Italy traded rule of parts the Dalmacija region of Croatia. When the Árpád dynasty (Hungarian) became extinct, the Croatians elected a Neapolitan (Napoli) prince Ladislas, king of Croatia (1409) and he sold Venice his rights to all of Dalmatia. By 1420 Venice controlled all of Dalmatia except Dubrovnik. The French Emperor Napoleon I signed a peace treaty with Austria in 1797. Whereby Austria ceded to France its holdings in Belgium and along the Rhine River in return for Istria, Venetia, and Dalmatia, which had belonged to Venice. The Republic of Venice ceased to exist. Austria's acquisitions along the Adriatic Sea were short-lived. After Emperor Napoleon's successful campaign of 1805, another peace treaty required Austria to surrender all the lands it had acquired from Venice to a newly created French dependency called the Kingdom of Italy. After another French victory in 1809 , Emperor Napoleon I forced Austria to cede part of Carinthia and Croatia south of the Sava River, which together with Istria and Dalmatia were formed into the Illyrian Provinces attached directly to France. This Illyrian territory existed 1809-1813. The French entered the city-republic of Dubrovnik in 1806 and in 1807 incorporated it into the Illyrian Provinces. After the fall of Emperor Napoleon, Austria regained all those territories that it had held prior to the Napoleonic era , as well as those they had held and lost between 1805 and 1809, plus Dubrovnik. 1867-1918 Istria was part of of Austria under the dual Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. 1918-1947 Istria was part of Italy, not Croatia or Yugoslavia. Following the First World War, new borders for Austro-Hungarian Monarchy were set by the Treaties of Saint Germain-en-Laye (September 10, 1919) and Trianon (June 4, 1920). As a result, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was utterly transformed into smaller territories and new countries. Hungary became an entirely separate nation, but lost large portions of its territories as well, retaining only core Hungarian-speaking areas. Retained were West and Central Hungary plus a small western portion of the Banat, the northern portion of the Batschka, the Central Hungarian Highlands, and the northern portion of Swabian Turkey. A new country of Yugoslavia was also formed including the former Austro-Hungarian lands of the southern portion of the Banat, the southern portion of the Batschka, Bosnia-Hercegovina, the southern portion of the duchy of Carinthia (Slovenia), most of the of duchy of Carniola, Croatia-Slavonia, the kingdom of Dalmatia, the southern portion of Swabian Turkey, the southern portion of duchy of Styria, and Syrmia. (The Kingdom of Serbs,Croats and Slovenes was established on Dec. 1, 1918) renamed Yugoslavia on October 4, 1929. It existed as such until 1941 and as a communist state (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) from 1945 to 1991. The six republics that formed the former Yugoslavia were : Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia, and Serbia. Following WW 1, Italy took for itself the southwestern portion of duchy of Carniola, the county of Gorizia-Gradisca, the margraviate of Istria, the town of Trieste, the southern portion of the county of Tyrol, city of Zada (formerly part of the Kingdom of Dalmatia), and the islands of Cherso, Lusino, and Lagosta. In 1926, Trieste, Istria, southwestern Carniola, and northern Dalmatia was divided into the districts of Trieste, Rijeka/Fiume, and Pula/Pola by Italy. The 1947 (WW 2) peace treaty recognized Yugoslavia's acquisition of former Italian territory. This included Dalmatian city of Zadar/Zara and the islands of Cres/Cherso, Los^inj/Lusino, and Lastovo/Lagosta, as well as former city of Rijeka/Fiume and, farther north, western Slovenia and part of Istria. Because of the Italian connection there are more Italian surnames in Istria than in any other part of Croatia. http://www.istrianet.org/istria/ But today Trieste is not part of Istria nor of Croatia. In 1947, the Free Territory of Trieste was created . Zone A (city of Trieste) was administered by Anglo-American forces and Zone B by the Yugoslavs. In 1954, the Free Territory of Trieste was abolished. Zone B was given to former Yugoslavia and Zone A was given to Italy.