Start My Family Tree Welcome to Geni, home of the world's largest family tree.
Join Geni to explore your genealogy and family history in the World's Largest Family Tree.
Follow

Lovran Family Tree

Project Tags

Lovran

History

Lovran is the oldest coastal settlement in the eastern part of Istria.

It obtained its name from the Bay laurel bush (laurus nobilis), which grows in abundance in evergreen patches in the town and its surroundings. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Lovran became a town of seafarers and shipowners, intensifying trade links with Dalmatia, the island of Pag, Venice, Ancona. According to the canonical visit by the Pula Bishop Botter, at the beginning of the 18th century Lovran had 2900 inhabitants. After a brief French rule at the beginning of the 19th century, the area of Lovran was once again under Austrian rule and included in the Austrian province of Istria. The growth of shipping on sailboats in the Kvarner was also a positive for Lovran, with a significant number of prominent naval and shipowning families such as Peršić, Jeletić, Turčić, Vidošić and others. In the 19th century Lovran was a significant maritime center in the Adriatic, due to shipbuilding, as well as to the naval tradition of its population.

Thanks to the close proximity of Opatija, Lovran became an area of ​interest for tourism development in the late 19th century. Prior to the appearance of steamships, the population almost exclusively occupied itself with agriculture, seafaring and fishing. The establishment of a regular daily steamship line Rijeka - Lovran in the last quarter of the 19th century led to sharp changes from traditional occupations towards tourism as a new branch of the economy. Extremely suitable sea and mountain climate, out of reach of bora winds, land mostly covered with laurel and chestnut groves, traffic connection with Rijeka and the proximity to Central European population centres were more than favorable conditions for the development of tourism in this area. Initially the excursion destination of visitors from Rijeka and Opatija, Lovran grew into a tourist resort in its own right. On the coastal strip from the city harbor to Ika, a coastal walkway was established, villas and summer houses were built, and by the decision of the Istrian Provincial Assembly in Pula, at a session held on February 16, 1898, the basic elements and the location of ​the Lovran health resort were defined. In 1909, the Health Commission for Ika and Lovran was established, and its manager became Dr. Albin Eder. With the doctor's efforts, the Municipality carried out many works on the revitalization of the site, such as the introduction of sewerage, water supply and electric lighting, and the relocation of the old cemetery from the town itself to the Skaje area above Lovran.

Population

The native population is mostly Croatian and to a lesser extent Italian. Towards the end of 19th century, many families from the then Austro-Hungarian monarchy, mostly Slovenians, Austrians, Hungarians and Czechs, settled in the area of Lovran. After the Second World War migration from other parts of Yugoslavia to Lovran also took place.

Lovran and surroundings were also an area of emigration, especially in the second half of the nineteenth century and again after 1945.

The Lovran Family Tree (LFT)

This is an attempt to create a complete family tree of one town. The core of the LFT comes from about 3,000 marriages that took place in Lovran between 1771 and 1910. About 95% of these marriages are connected in the LFT. The remaining 190 are mostly unidentifiable due to incomplete data, or are marriages between foreigners, without connection to the local population. The number of profiles in the LFT is not easily counted, it is probably around 10,000. The principal source for the majority of profiles in the LFT are church registers - baptism, marriage and death books as well as family surveys (status animarum). In addition, valuable information was discovered in the collection of wills from the end of the 18. century.

In the 18th and 19th centuries Lovran had a population of about 3,000. This was the population of the entire St. George parish, not just the city itself, and includes nearby settlements like Tuliševica, Oprić, Liganj, Lovranska Draga. Up to around 1850 the vast majority of people married within the parish. Most of the remaining found their spouses in neighbouring towns and villages - Veprinac, Mošćenice, Rijeka. It is only toward the end of the 19th century that we notice a somewhat more significant influx of foreigners. And by foreigners I mean simply people who were not from Lovran or neighbouring parishes. Almost all of these "foreigners" were still from the same country - Austro-Hungarian empire.

Not only were the people in Lovran happy to choose their life companions from the rather limited local pool, they showed even less imagination when it came to naming their children. Almost all the children were named after catholic saints. Not only that, the names weren't selected arbitrarily, but followed the church calendar. For example, most children named Jacobus were born in July, Catharina was most popular in October and November, Josephus in March, Georgius in April, Andreas in November. These times obviously coincide with the birthdays of the corresponding saints.

Around 90% of the children who were born between 1730 and 1830 got one of about 2 dozen given names. With boys the most popular were Antonius, Mattheus, Joannes, with girls Maria, Catharina, Helena. Many nowadays common names were extremely rare. Elizabeta appeared just 4 times, Eduardus twice, Veronica twice and there was a single Philippus. In the same period 475 boys were named Antonius and no less than 950 girls were named Maria.

A distinct seasonal pattern can be seen with marriages. By far most marriages in any given year took place in the months of February and March, apparently following some religious tradition.

Naming Conventions

Most profiles in the LFT have surnames with contemporary Croatian spelling. Exceptions are foreign surnames and surnames which are extinct and for which no contemporary spelling is available.

Given names, on the other hand, are almost exclusively written in Latin. The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, church books were written in different languages over time, with Latin most prevalent, so I chose Latin version of the names for consistency. The second reason is due to Geni's search utility which doesn't recognise spelling variants in the names. Searching for Joannes will never find people names Ivan, Ivanes, Giovanni, John, Johann, Johannes, Janez, although these are essentially the same names.

This naming convention was applied only to older profiles. Since the end of the 19th century, when people stopped using exclusively names of saints, contemporary spelling is used.

Entry Points

There is no single beginning of the LFT. There is no central profile around which the tree is built. So how do you get to it? Geni search with "Lovran" in the location field is not going to find you anything.

Here is a partial list of some of the oldest profiles in the LFT which can be used as entry points. All these persons were born before year 1700. Their exact year of birth is mostly not known, however they had grandchildren in early 1730s.

Surnames

This section is about the surnames in Lovran in the period from 1730 to 1830.

Surnames in Lovran did not remain constant over time. Some surnames which were frequent in the 18th century, like Benulić, Battestin, Bosotinić, Cipidlaka, Snašić, completely disappeared by 1900.

Many people used 2 surnames, like Valentin Hotnik, Valić Strah, Terdić Rampaljić, Priškić Jedriškić, Peršić Belinić, Martinčić Vučić, Palmić Mestrić, Mušić Bazor. To complicate matters further, they were sometimes recorded with just one, sometimes with the other, sometimes with both surnames. Some people also changed the surname during their lifetime.

An example of such a change is Snašić, which was quite widespread in the 18th century. Then the people who were born Snašić suddenly became known as Janjetić. By 1800 Snašić all but disappeared, but Janjetić thrived.

Other examples of name change are:

  • Skočan -> Stepanić
  • Banić -> Banić Marinčić -> Markulin
  • Gersanić - Popeškić
  • Priškić -> Jedriiško
  • Priškić Begh -> Besić
  • Mašarić -> Kersanac
  • Martinčić -> Martinčić Pičić -> Pičić Orbić
  • Marković -> Mušić

The reason for these changes is not known.

Most frequent surnames in Lovran overall: Kersanac, Kružić, Geletić, Mandić, Martinčić, Mihalić, Mišćenić, Mrak, Mušić, Palmić, Peršić, Priškić, Sirotnjak.

Immigrants: a small number of people from other countries settled in Lovran. Examples are:

Emigrants: several people from Lovran moved elsewhere in search of better life. Examples are:

Notable persons
English (US)   eesti   Svenska   Español (España)   Français   עברית   Norsk (bokmål)   dansk   Nederlands   Deutsch   »
To enable the proper functioning and security of the website, we collect information via cookies as specified in our Cookie Policy. Geni does not use any third-party cookies.