The church in Krbavica, St. Prorok Ilija
Birth, death and marriage records are usually a key element of a community’s history, but sadly for Lika Serbs there’s not really that much available to help discover ancestors before 1946. Go to this page to understand what records are available (as of 2023) and where to find them.
The ‘familysearch.org’ church records are the only known births, deaths and marriage records that exist for Lika orthodox churches. They were filmed in the 1980s at the Croatian National Archive in Zagreb. However, they are limited to a few years in the 19th century. It is possible there are additional records in the archive that are not available online. The records provide an insight in to the communities and offers the small possibility of finding an ancestor. The links to the transcribed records are at the bottom of this page.
Status of the ‘familysearch.org’ Records
The records can not be searched as they are images of the original documents. The script used when creating the documents makes the records difficult to read. In the main, an archaic form of the Serbian Cyrillic character set was used and the handwriting is generally of average to poor clarity. An additional factor is the use of different characters to represent the same sound, even in the same church and in the same year. The Grujić 1915 Lika surname/village reference list is indispensable in helping the transcription process.
Formats
Some of the early records (1829, 1830) are freehand with no headings. These are particularly difficult to read. The 1850s records, in comparison, are a little easier to read as each type of record (birth, death, marriage) is on a standard printed form with headings, although the archaic Cyrillic printed character set is used. The detail of each event is handwritten in cursive archaic Cyrillic. Printed and cursive Cyrillic can be very different characters for the same sound and small letters can be very different to its capital letter form for both cursive and printed characters. The local registry records from the later 19th century for villages around Vodoteč are mainly written in the latin character set and therefore, in the main, are relatively straightforward to read.
Available Information
There are records for marriages, birth/christenings and deaths. The marriage records are the most useful as they capture the parents of the bride and groom and in a few cases the maiden name of the mothers. Also included is the house number and village of each party. Ages are also provided and of course the date of the marraige. The groom’s and best man’s ‘role/job’ is also listed. In the latter case 99% are identified as ‘Graničari‘ i.e. border guards. The equivalent role in the late 19th century records is mainly recorded as ‘peasant’, which highlights the impact of the dissolution of the military border in 1874.
There are additional snippets of information on the marriage form associated with religious concerns such as: are either of the parties widows/widowers, is the bride a ‘maiden‘ and if not her late husband’s name, and groom’s and bride’s religion. In the 1850s the typical description for religion is ‘vostočnopravoslavni’ meaning Eastern Orthodox and this is abbreviated in a variety of ways. Finally, there’s the name of the church and the village, the church official who conducted the ceremony and his precise role, typically ‘paroh = parish priest‘ or sometimes ‘kapelan = chaplain‘.
Cultural Considerations
Lika people lived in extended families on the same farmstead, sometimes in the same house. This social grouping was called a ‘Zadruga’. For marriage and birth records there are different parent christian names for the same address and it can not be assumed they were close relations. DNA tests on an extended Zadruga consisting of 5 houses (same surname, same postal address) revealed no DNA autosomal links between two of the households. This fits the general understanding that communities were careful to kurb marriages between even distant relatives; in practice this meant marriage between third cousins or closer were avoided.
With respect to post marriage homes there are occurrences where a groom would move in to his wife’s household: the groom is said to have ‘priženio‘. This is perhaps usually associated with a no male heirs in the bride’s family and/or too many male children in the groom’s family.
Transcription Status and Links
The following table lists the village records that have been transcribed so far.
| Village | Note |
|---|---|
| Lika Language and Scripts | Short introduction to the language and scripts used in context of the 19th century church records. |
| Archaic Cyrillic Examples | Examples and interpretations from the record |
| Christian Names from the Record | Names in the record and their modern equivalents. |
| Transcribed Church Records Examples | Two original marriages forms are used from 1856. |
| Bjelopolje | Marriages, Births Deaths 1857-58 |
| Bunić | Marriages, Births 1857-58 |
| Debelo Brdo | Marriages, Births, Deaths 1857-58 |
| Deringaj (inc. Kijani, Omsica, Tomingaj) | Marriages 1856 |
| Divoselo | Marriages 1856-57 |
| Gornji Vrhovine | Marriages, Births, Deaths 1856 |
| Gračac (inc. Grab, Štikada) | Marriages 1856 |
| Komić | Marriages 1831 |
| Korenica | Marriages 1856-57-58 |
| Krbavica | Marriages 1857-58, Births 1857 |
| Ličko Petrovo Selo | Marriages, Births, Deaths 1857-58 |
| Medak | Marriages 1830, 1856-57 |
| Mekinjar | Marriages 1857-58 |
| Mogorić | Marriages 1856-57 |
| Ploča | Marriages 1856-57 |
| Podlapač | Marriages 1857-58 |
| Raduč | Marriages 1856 |
| Široka Kula | Marriages 1856 |
| Škare | Marriages 1829 |
| Smiljan | Marriages 1856-57 |
| Vodoteč | Marriages 1888-94, Births 1888-91 & 1898 Deaths 1888-91 local council registry records. |
| Vrebac | Marriages 1831, 1833, 1856 |
Lika Ancestors 