Boarding house in Bingham, Utah 1910
A few examples are provided to help people researching their Lika ancestors through the USA record. The resources used to discover the details were; ancestry.com, family search.org, findagave.com, genealogybank.com, and internet search engines (duckduckgo.com, google.com) and of course Grujić’s 1915 census of Lika surnames. The details provided here are all publicly available through the above resources.
Borić vs Borčić
While researching a Borić extended family for another project looking at Lika people in the Utah mining town of Bingham Canyon, this particular Borić family came to light. It provides a number of examples of the pitfalls as well as positive outcomes from the USA record.
The research was prompted by a Utah marriage certificate from 1927 (key details in the below table) where the bride and groom were both listed as Borić (Borich), which was unusual.
| Bride/Groom | Birth Year | Mother | Father |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sophia Borich | 1908 | Vera Covich | Joe Borich |
| Nick Borich | 1895 | Stenna Naretech | Steve Borich |
Initially, it wasn’t absolutely clear that the parents were actually from Lika as the Borić surname could be from other Croatia counties and northern Bosnia. The birth year suggested the bride was likely born in the USA and her name the USA equivalent of the Slavic Sofija, and that the groom was born in the Austrian Empire and almost certainly his name was Nikola.
The groom’s mother’s maiden name (Naretech) is neither a Lika name nor Slavic so clearly it did not accurately capture her real name. This is where knowledge of Lika surnames and the Grujić book is important. The closest match to this surname is Narančić and the combination of Borić & Narančić suggested the parents were from the Vrhovine area of Lika; Borić from Babin Potok and Narančić from Turjanski.
In the high majority of cases in the 19th century people married from the same or nearby villages.
The bride’s mother’s maiden name is more straight forward the surname of Čović (a close match to Covich) were only from the village of Široka Kula. While her husband could have also been from Babin Potok there are closer villages to Kula where Borić lived. All this together suggested that all the parents were likely from Lika.
Researching the groom’s name in Utah, resulted in a number of records for Nick Borich born in 1912 and Nick Borich born in 1895. Nick1912 turned out to be the bride’s brother and was born in Bingham. On finding 1920, 1930, 1940 census records for Nick1912, it was clear his parents Joe and Vera had 4 children; 2 born in Bingham and 2 in ‘Servia/Yugoslavia’. The 1920 and 1930 census records show that Vera (known as Della in 1920 & 30 and Devona in 1940) arrived in the USA in 1911 with two of the children Sophia and Mick (born 1907). Joe’s arrival was listed as both 1911 and 1910, which invariably means he’d forgotten the actual year of immigration. Joe’s year of birth was stated as 1868 and Vera 1876 and that they were married in 1900 (1930 census detail – age of first marriage). This confirmed they were married in Lika and not the USA, and therefore by default they were from the same or nearby villages.
Given that there was now an establish set of records for this family, the focus continued to try and confirm the village of origin. Nothing could be found for Joe Borich’s immigration. Clearly the name Joe was anglicised so searches were for a ‘Boric’ arriving in 1910 & 1911, born around 1868. Joe’s death certificate in 1942 listed his birth place as Perusic and listed his parents names as Lazo Borich and Stana Sudakovich. There were no Borić in Perusic and secondly his mother’s maiden name is not from Lika although on reviewing possible surnames in Grujic’s book, Sužuković was a prime candidate. The Sužuković were only from Široka Kula (save 1 family). Vera’s details on findagrave.com lists her as ‘DeVona “Deva” Kovich Borich’ implying her maiden name was Kovich, so the surname of Čović is still likely. The notes also confirm she was born in Lika in 1873 to parents Nikola and Ana Dudich Kovich. Her mother’s maiden surname of Dudich is unknown in Lika. Two possible candidates from Grujić’s book are Dučić who were from Gračac and Vrhovine and on the face of it the less likely surname of Žužić. However, the latter were only from Široka Kula which fits perfectly. A Bunić church record from the 1850s has the Žužić name spelled with ‘Dz’ rather than Ž and in the above Sudakovich surname the ‘d’ replaced a ‘ž’. Finally, the ‘Ž’ sound is not used in the English language and therefore a clerk in the USA writing out the marriage certificate would have simply guessed or was told to use a ‘d’ by the bride or groom.
On searching for Vera/Deva Boric arriving in the USA in 1911 with 2 children nothing was found. To find no immigration record for Joe or his wife and children is a little unusual and therefore perhaps they weren’t Borić after all. While it is plausible a Borić could marry a Čović based on village locations, the surname above Borić in Grujić’s book is Borčić.
Borčić is a more likely candidate given they lived in a number of villages close to Široka Kula and also close to Perušić ( the village stated on Joe’s death certificate ). Searching for a ‘Borcic’ arriving in 1911 with 2 children immediately found a very good match. Pera Borcic born 1873 and two children Sava (born 1908) and Milan (1907) were travelling to Utah from Konjsko Brdo (ancestry.com has it wrongly transcribed as Ronjsko). Pera’s nearest relative in Konjsko Brdo was listed as her father Vaso Borcic. Clearly, this was her father-in-law and Vaso (phonetic ‘Va-saw’) could easily have been misheard for Lazo (‘Laz-awe’) by the manifest’s scribe. On the 2nd page of the manifest it lists the person she is travelling to as her husband. The original written name does not make sense, but it is crossed out and replaced in pencil (probably by the USA immigration officer) with the name ‘Jovo Borcic’ living in Salt Lake City. This confirmed both Joe’s real name as Jovo and that he was a Borčić from Konjsko Brdo which is close to Perušić.
Joe clearly has changed his name from Borčić to Borich presumably to make it easier to pronounce in the USA, but confusingly adopted another real Lika name making it very difficult to discover his actual surname.
On researching Jovo and Pera/Deva Borčić’s children, it was found that they had a 5th child who for some reason stayed in Lika. The findagrave.com entry for Pera/Deva lists this 5th child as ‘Bernice’ (not a Slavic or Lika name) Milisavljević. Her husbands surname is also only found in Široka Kula ( save 1 family ). In addition, Pera/Deva’s daughter, Julia’s obituary in findagrave.com states that Pera/Deva’s surname was Kovac not Kovich/Covich. The surname of Kovač in Lika is also only from Široka Kula.
In conclusion, the below table lists the known names and village of origin for the Utah Borčić (USA Borich) family.
| Names | Birth Year/Village | Mother | Father |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jovo Borčić (USA Joe Borich) | 1868 Konjsko Brdo | Stana Sužuković Siroka Kula (USA Stenna Sudakovich) | Lazo Borčić Konjsko Brdo (USA Lazo Borich) |
| Pera Čović OR Kovač (USA Vera/Della /Devona Covich/ Kovich/Kovac) | 1873 Siroka Kula | Ana Žužić Siroka Kula (USA Dudich) | Nikola Čović OR Kovač Siroka Kula |
| Jovo & Pera’s Children | Birth Year/Place | Marriage1 | Marriage2 |
| ? Borčić (USA Bernice) | ? Konjsko Brdo | Milisavljević | |
| Milan Borčić (USA Mike Borich) | 1907 Konjsko Brdo | ||
| Sava Borčić (USA Sophia Borich) | 1908 Konjsko Brdo | Nikola Borić (USA Nick Borich) 0 children | Vajo Končar (USA Koncar) 10 children |
| Nick Borich | 1912 Bingham Canyon | Margaret Keithley | |
| Julia Borich | 1913 Bingham Canyon | Petar Bursać (USA Pete Bursach) 1 child | |
| Spouses of Lika Origin | Mother | Father | |
| Nikola Borić | 1895 Babin Potok(tbc) | Stana Narančić(tbc) (USA Stenna Naretech) Turjanski(tbc) | Stevan Borić (USA Steve Borich) Babin Potok(tbc) |
| Vajo Končar | 1890 Končarev Kraj | Marija Popović Zalužnica (tbc) | Rade Končar Končarev Kraj |
| Petar Bursać | 1896 Srb | Stevo Bursać Srb |
Lika Ancestors 