1915 Postcard from Pueblo which sums up Ličani life in the city before WW2
The resources used to discover the details were; ancestry.com, familysearch.org, findagave.com and of course Grujić 1915 survey of Lika. The details provided here are all publicly available through the aforementioned resources.
The focus of this example is dealing with significant differences in personal details and still being able to make some conclusions. Most Lika people born in the 19th century were illiterate and the the day, month and year of birth as result varied. In part, this was due to delays in registering births with civil authorities and/or the church if in fact it occurred at all. It’s best to assume at least +/- 2 yrs for the birth year and the same for any marriage date before arrival in the USA.
As with Example1, this example came to light while researching another surname; a Pavlica from Komić. The daughter of the family in this example married a Pavlica, her maiden name Sophia Tomkovich. She was listed in a family tree on Ancestry.com and her parents were Iso and Pera Tomkovich. Her father’s name in the family tree had an additional name added in inverted commas of Marko Vukmirovic, but no explanation provided. However, Iso was born in Bunić.
The basic details for Sophia’s parents from the family tree are listed below
| Parents | Birth, Village |
|---|---|
| Iso Tomkovich ‘Marko Vukmirovic’ | 1876, Bunic |
| Pera Vukmirovich | 1878, Serbia |
In the first instance, the surname Tomkovich does not exist in Lika, but there were Tonković in Bunić, 5 houses in 1915. Vukmirović was a relatively common surname in Lika with 16 houses in Bunić in 1915. Clearly, Bunić is the village of origin for Iso, but still no clue about who he actually was.
Searching for more records for Iso Tomkovich, as well as census entries for 1920, 1930 and 1940, there was a Petition for Naturalisation from December 1938. This document confirms the details from the family tree and some additional data including;
| Iso immigration date is stated as 13th March 1901 on the ship SS Hannover arriving in Baltimore. |
| Pera arrived 1912 at Baltimore and came from Bunić. |
| Iso and Pera were married in Bunić on 20th January 1898, respectively 22 & 20 years old according to their birth years. |
| Their daughters were born 1913 and 1915 in Peublo. |
| Iso states that he is Serbian. |
A quick search of the record for 1901 arrivals with the name of Iso Tonkovic did not find any records on either Ancestry or Familysearch. A search for Marko Vukmirovic yielded a few results; one of them arrived on 13th March 1901, the same date and ship as Iso Tomkovich states. Marko was 18 years old on arrival so a birth year of 1883 and he was married. The 7 years difference to Iso’s birth is ordinarily too large a difference to ignore.
On looking again at the 1938 naturalisation record on Ancestry, selecting the ‘next record’ function shows the 2nd page of the application, which has details of witnesses and sworn oath section. From past experience, the next record again was selected which provides Iso’s Declaration of Intention in 1938. In the main, it presents the same information as the ‘Petition’ form except for the following details:
| Immigration date is the same of 13th March 1901 on the ship SS Hannover arriving in Baltimore however it states that his name on the immigration record was Marko Vukmirovic (and not Iso Ton/mkovic) |
| Pera arrived in 1912 at Balitmore, came from Bunić, but was born in 1888, not 1878. |
This ‘Declaration of Intention’ is clearly the source of the alternative name of Marko Vukmirovic, but the issue remains about his year of birth, 1883 vs the consistent year of 1876 for all of Iso Tomkonvich’s other documents.
On the same 13th March 1901 manifest page there is also an Iso Vukmirovic from Bunić who is 17 years old. This is likely the inspiration for Marko/Iso’s changed name. They could be related although no other record was found for Iso Vukmirovic.
Marko Vukmirovic is travelling to Chicago to stay with his brother-in-law Kosta Grahovac. There were also Grahovac in Bunić.
A migration record exists for a Pera Tonkovic, arriving 12th November 1912 at Baltimore. The record found is on the detained travellers list, which was usual for unaccompanied females or people detained for a health check. The record itself has very little information, however it does list the manifest sheet and line number. These ‘detention’ records are found at the end of a ship’s manifest. Familysearch provides for much quicker search page by page of a particular manifest and it didn’t take long to find the entry for Pera in the main body of the manifest.
Pera is listed as 26 years old, so born in 1886 in Bunić and 5′ 3″ tall with brown hair and eyes. Importantly, it states she is single. It also lists her closest relative as her sister Boja Njegovan living in Bunić. There were no Njegovan in Bunić, but there were in the neighbouring and much smaller village of Šalamunić. Pera is travelling to Chicago to her ‘brother’ (read cousin), Jovo Dragaš. The Dragaš are mainly from Bunić. If this is the correct Pera, there’s no obvious reason not to state she is married and travelling to her husband, as many other married Lika women did.
The other available records are from various census years all in Pueblo, summarised below. In the 1930 census it’s odd that Iso and Pera have a different year for marriage; this information was captured as ‘age at marriage’ in only that census year. It’s possible that Pera was Iso/Marko’s 2nd wife, but just as likely the census clerk misunderstood the years he was told.
| Name | 1910 | 1920 | 1930 | 1940 | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iso | b.1877. m.10yrs. i. 1901 | b.1877. i.1901. | b.1874. m. 1894. i. 1901. | b.1876. | i.1901 = b.1883. Iso pn.1938 = m.1898. |
| Pera | n/a | b.1877. i.1901. | b.1880. m.1898. i.1912. | b.1878. | Iso pn.1938 = b.1888. *i.1912 = b.1886 |
There are also consistent Pueblo city directory records for Iso and Pera/Pearl from 1913 onwards and mainly under the name Tonkovich, but these records offer little other information to help confirm their identity.
In Conclusion
This would have been a very simple story of the Tonković surname becoming Tomkovich after a period in the USA. However, in 1938 Iso Tomkovich’s Declaration of Intention stated he arrived in the USA as Marko Vukmirović, and there is a matching immigration record for Marko on the same date and ship name as stated in the 1938 document. It is odd that on the Petition for Naturalisation in the same year, Iso states he arrived on the same ship and date as Iso Tomkovich. On the census records, it clearly identifies that Iso could neither read nor write and although he very likely learned some spoken English he remained illiterate. Both naturalisation related forms would therefore have been completed by a friend or it was directly spoken to the court clerk either of which could have introduced errors and Iso would not have been able to check the accuracy of the details.
There is no legitimate reason for Iso to name himself as arriving as Marko Vukmirović if in fact it wasn’t his real name. The big discrepancy is the year of birth. Marko is 18 in 1901 born in 1883, but from at least the 1910 census Iso Ton/mkovich indicates his year of birth as 1877 or thereabouts until his death.
The immigration record for Pera Tonkovic is problematic as it states she is single. Of course this may not be Iso’s wife, but the coincidence of the year of immigration as stated by Iso on his naturalisation documents and the 1930 census immigration date, the name & surname and the village of origin suggests it is very likely her.
In 1912, Iso was likely in Pueblo given his 1910 census record while Pera’s immigration record has her travelling to Chicago to her cousin. However, it’s clear that men without their families moved around the USA easily looking for jobs and the Chicago-Pueblo route although long was a well trodden path by Lika men. Therefore, Iso could have moved back to Chicago after the 1910 census or simply had travelled there to pickup Pera and together returned to Pueblo in 1913 where their first daughter was born on 28th August 1913. This date of birth suggests the daughter was conceived in December 1912 and therefore we either already married or knew each other very well.
The fact that Marko had already changed his name to Iso Tomkovich by 1910, and before Pera arrived, suggests they were partners in Lika and Marko identifies that he is married on his 1901 immigration. If they were married 1898-1900 then it is highly likely they had at least 1 child born in Lika by end 1901. There are other examples of Lika born children staying with grandparents, while their parents made a new life in the USA.
No record suggests Iso ever went back to Bunić between 1901 and 1912 or at anytime thereafter. Even if Iso and Pera were not already married, but met in Chicago in late 1912 it’s possible they knew each other as they were both from Bunić and even if not the Lika Serbs mainly lived in tight knit communities and so would have met each other fairly quickly,
It seems certain that Iso Ton/mkovich was in fact Marko Vukmirović and that he took his friend’s or relative’s name of Iso who travelled with him to the USA in 1901 and combined it with what was likely his wife’s maiden name of Tonković. However, the significant difference in year of birth for Iso/Marko between 1901 and all other records remains a concern. The Pera Tonković who arrived in 1912 is also certainly Marko/Iso’s wife given he was already calling himself Tomkovich in 1910 and perhaps by letter (written by a friend) he let her know not give his name on the ship’s manifest.
As with example1, and a number of other known examples, Lika men changing their names to other valid Lika names in the USA was not that unusual, although they all remain somewhat baffling.
Ironically, Iso and Pera’s daughter Sophia married Pete Pavlica whose father had also changed his name from Petković to Pavlica after arriving in the USA.
Note about the Bunić Tonković
The Tonković from Bunić are orthodox, but were originally descended from a Croatian catholic from the village of Sinac according to local legend as advised to the website by a Tonković from Bunić. The story is that a Tonković from Sinac had some business with a Bunić man and fell in love with his daughter. He converted to orthodoxy so that he could marry her and settled in Bunić.
Lika Ancestors 