Sandy Laurie wrote: > > Hi . . . I'm new to the list. I've always thought my maternal gr grandfather was of Slovenian descent . . . now I'm not so sure. Relatives on the family farm in Slovenija tell me he bought the farm in the late 1880's. I know he was in the US several times to work. In 1904 he traveled with cousins who were from Zagorje. This area looks to be right over the border in Croatia, not far from the farm in Slovenija. The name Kriznik in the US is not common . . . most are relatives of mine. I noticed many Krizniks listed in the Croatian telephone directory. Am I on the right track? Does anyone know whether this name is Slovenian or Croatian? > > Thanks > Sandy If surname had ended in the South Slavic surname affix -ic'/-vic', -ovic' pron. ovich, meaning 'son of' it might have helped ?. Some Croatian and Slovenian characters (letters) like " c " employ diacritic-accented marks. v c pronounced as " ch " in English word ch-urch. c' pronounced as " ch " in English word ch-eap. c is pronounced as " ts " in English word tse-tse. The angular c' is used when c is the last letter in a Croatian surname. (Slovenian doesn't have this angular c' character and uses c ^ instead) Kriz^ means cross in both Croatian and Slovene. -nik is an occupational affix. v Example, radnik = manual worker,lijecnik = doctor,and z^upnik = parish priest. There are three Zagorje in Croatia. One is located 97 miles WSW of Zagreb. Zagorje (Krs^an) http://zagorje.net/svetista/tuhelj.htm Zagorje (Krnjak) Zagorje (Ogulin) is probably the one you refer to.