Quarterly Newsletter of the Slovenian Genealogy Society International, Inc.

October 2016

Highlights of the 2016 SGSI Conference in Slovenia

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Finding Family– Stories by 2016 Conference Participants

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“Presidents Message for Oct 2016” By Rose Marie (Macek) Jisa

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“An Unusual Way to Say Hvala Lepa” By Karen J Engelking

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Important Addition to SGSI Library 7

Inside this issue: After months of planning, September 14 finally arrived! It was time for the bags to be packed and board the flights to Slovenia to join others the next morning in search of their Slovenian heritage. For some, it was our first time in Slove-nia; for others, this was not so, for sev-eral had taken part in the 2008 and/or the 2013 conference. When we reached Brnik Airport near Ljubljana the next morning, we learned that many would be arriving on different flights—from Paris, Vienna, Frankfurt, Munich. So we did what Slovenians do—we gathered in the coffee bar and awaited their arrival. As each flight ar-rived, we identified fellow travelers by their look of “What do I do now?” Of course, they joined us until the last person arrived! For the next step in our journey, we boarded our private motor coach and traveled through the country to Slove-nia’s Riviera on the Adriatic—Portoroz! Arriving at the Riviera Hotel, we went to our assigned rooms, rather exhausted from flying all night! At 6:30 p.m., we attended a Meet and Greet Party prior to dinner at the hotel. During this time, we were able to identi-

fy our villages/towns on a map skillfully put together by the welcoming commit-tee. Then, the “ice-breaker” took place! Following a member’s suggestion, Betsy Nosse, SGSI’s incoming Presi-dent, devised a game where we had to identify a person in the group who matched each of the 16 blocks on a

“bingo” card! What fun this was! We were strangers no more! Four people filled all the blocks within 20 minutes and were the winners! After dinner, we all re-tired for a good night’s rest. Friday morning, the con-ference began with three presentations: Mike Zakrajsek’s topic was the cemetery database he is developing for the Socie-ty; Peter Hawlina was next with information on how DNA can assist in identifying relatives; and last, Silvia Zele translat-

ed/explained columnar headings found in birth, marriage, and death record books at the Archives. The afternoon was spent aboard a boat that took us to Koper and Piran. We were served wine and a delicious lunch while enjoying melodious Slovenian folk tunes provid-ed by a button box player. It rained most of the day, but that didn’t matter! We opened our umbrellas and toured the coastal towns with enthusiasm! That evening, we were on our own .

In this edition of the Linden Tree, we spotlight the 2016 SGSI Conference

in Slovenia and reveal details of the exciting tours, genealogy workshops, and memorable stories of finding family. Be sure to visit the SGSI Face-book page to see more photos of

conference activities and the beauty of Slovenia. Special thanks to Ed Oshaben for his photography skills and posting the events on our social media page! We end the year with a

special message from our President, Rose Marie Macek Jisa, as she shares her thoughts on moving forward. The next issue of the Linden Tree will

bring in a new year reflecting a change in leadership as Betsy Nosse begins her term of office as president of SGSI. In addition, more tools for genealogy research and articles high-

lighting the culture and unique stories behind our Slovenian heritage will be included.

Continued on pg. 2

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2016 CONFERENCE IN SLOVENIA

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2016 CONFERENCE IN SLOVENIA

from 2nd to 6th cousins--learned what hospitality was all about as we were treated like royalty by our newly found families—food, drink, and photos of our families sent to them by our families over the decades! Some gathered other members of the family from different villages to greet us! What an awesome experience!

On Tuesday evening, we had a typical Slovenian meal at the Sestica Restaurant in Ljubljana. The restaurant provided entertainment in the form of dance group who performed typical folk danc-es from the past. They even involved us in the “Hat Dance” which was lots of fun. Also that evening, spe-cial tributes were given to our outgoing president, Rose Marie, who has served in this position for the past nine years. And to conclude our jour-ney, there was a farewell gathering on Thursday even-ing at the Grand Union Ho-tel. Once again, we heard music being played on a but-ton box. This time, it was Rose Marie who played and we sang along with her as she played the familiar Tere-zinka and Oj Maricka Pegla polkas! Ending the evening was Marilyn Bombac who volunteered to recite a fare-well poem dealing with

meeting people for just a short while, but remembering them for a life time! What a joyous time for all! At 4 a.m. the next morning, those who had early flights boarded the bus for the airport. Some flew directly back to America; some extended their time in Slovenia; others were going to other destinations in Europe. It seemed too quickly that our journey to find our families was over. It was, but the experiences we had researching and meeting our families and the people we have come to know on this trip will remain in our hearts for many years to come . . . .

Saturday morning came too early, but we were all on time to travel to one of the wine-growing regions of Slovenia. After visiting the town of Smartno, we visited a winery where we enjoyed tasting several different types of wine. That evening, we had dinner at a lovely restaurant in Piran and were entertained by Slovenia’s world champion button box player, Denis Novato. The final day of touring found us traveling to Lipica, the home of the Lipizzaner breed of horses most famous for their showman-ship. From there, we traveled to the Lizjak winery where we tasted five different varieties of wines and had a light lunch. Again, it was raining as we trav-eled through the Primorska region of Slovenia to the Predjama Castle and the Postojna Cave. The Castle is built into the side of the moun-tain and has a jousting area below where a yearly festival is held and includes jousting matches! Then it was on to one of the world’s largest caves where we boarded a train that took us into the innards of a most beautiful representation of stalagmites and stalactites in the world! Finally, we were on our way to the Grand Union Hotel in Ljubljana. After getting settled in our rooms, we had a walking tour to the Arch-bishopric Archives on Krekov Square, walking through the mar-ket area and old town Ljubljana on the way. Now, the real excitement began! The days in Ljubljana found us either at the Archives beginning our research into our history or already traveling to our villages. Barbara Bedenk was our Slovenian Tour Director who helped or-ganize visits to our villages. In addition, members of Slo-venia’s genealogy society served as driver/translators. Although all of us were able to identify our villages, several were not able to find any living relatives. But we were able to see the house or the area where the house had once been. And in some instances, we were entertained by fellow Slo-venians (actually strangers) in the village as though we were family! Those of us who did find relatives--anywhere Photo credits: ED Oshaben and Rose Marie Jisa

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2016 CONFERENCE IN SLOVENIA

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FINDING FAMILY—Stories by 2016 Conference Participants

This is the story of two sisters, Joelene Mack and Cheralyn Olivo who live in California. They were searching for their relatives, the Bukovec, Strekelj, Dagarin, and Berdnik families who lived in Sora and Osolnik, small villages in Gorenska. Luckily for them, these villages are very close to where Peter Hawlina lives. Peter is the President of Slovenia’s Genealogy Society and he served as their driver-translator. The story . . . . “Peter Hawlina knew sev-eral of the members of our family so he took us on Monday and Tuesday out to see relatives we hadn’t yet found. We had no idea whether there were rela-tives still here or not. And we ended up meeting two third cousins and a second cousin! When we met the second cousin, Peter had called the newspaper and they sent out a reporter and a pho-tographer to be there at the meeting and that was the most exciting experience for us because this cousin was in his 80’s and looks exactly like our uncles! It was uncanny the way he walked, the way he smiled, just everything about him was like our uncles. That was really exciting! The house where we met this second cousin is where our grandfather was born. It’s not the same house because it has been rebuilt “One of the third cousins we met, actually a third cousin once removed, her mother had just died, so when we went to visit the village, a lot of the family was at the funeral, but another third cousin we did meet that day was elderly and very ill and so he hadn’t gone to the funeral. The young lady who was there spoke English, but most of the conversation was carried on between Peter and the cousin in Slovenian. Peter summarized the conversation later. “The family lives in a tiny, tiny village at the top of one of these mountains just beyond Ljubljana and it is in-credible—the road is winding and very narrow, yet the people living there drive like there is no tomorrow! And then there are just one or two houses up at the top, maybe three—they were all farmers.

“There used to be a church behind the house and be-cause it was so inaccessible, masses were held only four times a year—just for the holidays. However, the church was destroyed by an earthquake, then rebuilt in another village later. The second cousin’s family has moved away and he is up there by himself with almost no one else around!

“When we met another third cousin yesterday, and you talk about Slovenian hospitality, he was holding an 18-month-old baby who was unhappy because his mother had just left to attend night school. He went inside the house and re-turned with two small tables (still holding the baby!)—a box of chocolates, wafer cookies, and Schnapps! Eve-ry place we stopped we had to have Schnapps even when we were only about 15 minutes at the home of one of the cous-ins! At this third cousin’s home, photos of the father were brought out, and it was

just automatic that the Schnapps and food followed! “The young man with the baby was very interested in the fact that our family had been farmers in the United States because he was a farmer, too. He wanted to see photos of the farm which is no longer in the family. So now, we have to go home and find photos of this farm to send to our newly found cousin! “This experience has been so exciting! Tomorrow we go with another driver-translator to the cemetery and the church that the family had to come down off the moun-tain to attend. It was probably a 20-minute ride one way in a car and our family had to walk down the mountain to get supplies, etc., and then carry everything back up the mountain when there were no cars! It is just incredi-ble, yet it is SO beautiful up there! “This has been a really, really interesting experience even though Peter didn’t translate word for word for us-- he just summarized—so it wasn’t a real conversation with any of the cousins, but it was still exciting.”

Sisters Joelene Mack and Cheralyn Olivo researching at the Archives

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PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE—October2016

By Rose Marie (Macek) Jisa

The Linden Tree- Page 5

This will be my final message to you as your president. These past nine years have been some of the most exciting, fulfilling, and sometimes, the most challenging years of my life! The single, important thing I learned is that I made the right decision when Al Peterlin, SGSI’s founder, asked if I would be interested in assuming his job to lead the Society and I said, “Yes.” You may ask, “Why?” Volunteer work is something I have done most of my life in different areas of interest. However, it wasn’t until the work involved my own ethnicity, my Slovenian-ness, that I realized the difference between volunteering just to volunteer and volunteering, knowing that what you were doing was actu-ally helping your own people in a very special way.

As an example, the past couple of weeks involved SGSI’s 4th conference in Slovenia. There were 53 participants from 18 different states who arrived in Slovenia on September 15 with the intention of finding their villages and hopefully meeting living relatives. In most cases, the separation of families was over 100 years and in most cases, no contact had ever been made during these years. Working with SGSI volunteers, the Slovenian Genealogy Society of Slovenia, and Barbara Bedenk, our Tour Director, all participants identified their villages in the correct Slovenian regions; most made the journey to their villages; and many actually found relatives they never knew existed. Their heart-warming stories will be showcased in this edition and in future issues of the Linden Tree. Knowing that SGSI played a significant role in assisting this group of Slovenians (as well as assisting 174 others in past conferences) in identifying their Slovenian heritage is a tribute to all volunteers who have worked tirelessly since SGSI’s inception in 1986. Our working together for the good of our people—just 2 million living in Slovenia and an-other million and a half living in other parts of the world—is something we can all be proud of . . . . On another note, I’d like to thank the SGSI Board of Directors in honoring me at the final dinner of the Conference with their letters of appreciation--and the sparkling cake! Also, thank you to Ed Oshaben, President of the Cleveland Branch, Christine Panchur and Lorri Kaup, Board members in attendance, and others from the group who offered me many kind words. All touched my heart . . . . At the end of this year, the gavel passes to Betsy Nosse whose leadership, I know, will carry SGSI to new heights! She has the passion, the vision, and the expertise to lead us to an exciting future . . . my best to you, Betsy! And my sincere “hvala lepa” to all of you, our members, who continue to support SGSI through your membership. . . it is what keeps SGSI a viable Slovenian entity!!!!

The greater community of the Slovenian Genealogy Society, Int., including board of directors, members, volunteers and friends, wish to thank outgoing president, Rose Marie Macek Jisa, for the many con-tributions she has made towards the advancement of our organization and the years of service she so freely gave. Hvala lepa, Rose Marie!

Our Deepest Appreciation

“An Unusual Way to Say Hvala Lepa”

By Karen J. Engelking

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In June this year, I had the opportuni-ty to spend a week in Slovenia to re-search my maternal grandmother’s family in the Bočna area of Štajerska. My guide/translator, Maja Vehar of Gens Historia, helped me create an itinerary that included one short side-trip in the opposite direc-tion to Škofja Loka. The reason for my detour? I had obtained an agree-ment to visit the nationally known historian and genealogist Peter Hawlina at his home and express my great appreciation for his generous assistance in translating letters from my grandmother’s family who re-mained in Slovenia. When my mother passed away, I in-herited a small cigar box filled with over 50 handwritten letters – all in Slovene – which sat on a shelf for more than a decade, beckoning to me. A few years ago, I decided that I wanted to know what my grandmother’s sisters and brother wrote to her so many years ago. Not knowing the lan-guage, I was stumped as to how to get all of these letters translated. It took some research and trial and error, but I finally found Peter Hawlina, who agreed to work on the translations. Over the last couple of years, I scanned the letters and sent them piecemeal to Peter via email. The letters revealed the story of the family my grandmother left behind when she immigrated to Milwaukee in 1911 at the age of 17. The same themes repeated throughout: “Thank you for the clothes, food, etc…” or “what happened to the package you sent?” or “we are so hungry and sick” or “the crops failed again.” My grand-aunts and uncles suffered from poverty, sickness, and hardship before, during, and after World War II. Peter gave me such a wonderful, if tragic, gift – knowing more about my Slo-venian ancestors.

When the day arrived, Maja and I trav-eled to Peter’s 18th-century farmhouse in the tiny village of Lipica, just south-east of Škofja Loka. As a gift for Pe-ter, I brought a photo book about Mil-waukee, along with the family tree of the Žehelj family. Peter and his wife welcomed us warmly, offering refresh-ments. Peter, Maja and I sat together, poring over my family tree. Maja and Peter conversed in Slovenian about her re-search of the Žehelj family, which reached as far back as 1741. As they spoke, it occurred to me that this was truly an exciting opportunity for a be-ginning genealogist to meet such a prestigious historian/genealogist as Pe-

ter Hawlina! Reverting back to English for my benefit, our discussion turned to other research issues specific to Slovenia.

Before we parted, I ex-plained to Peter why this crazy American woman had to meet him face to face and bring a gift of thanks (even though I had already paid the translation fees to him). Having never known my maternal grand-mother, Marija Žehelj, and having very little oral his-tory or photos of her, his translations of her letters gave me the priceless gift of learning about her gen-erosity in sending food,

clothing, and money to her siblings for many years. Those translations also gave me a glimpse of everyday life in rural Slovenia through several decades. I carried home many fond memories of my grand-mother’s hometown, other places in beautiful Slovenia, along with a special connection to a very special man. Hvala lepa, Peter!

Mariha Zehlj, grandmother of author, Karen Engelking

L-R: Karen Engelking, Karen’s guide, Maja Vehar,

Peter Hawlina and his wife, Irena.

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IMPORTANT ADDITION TO SGSI’S COLLECTION

Contact Information for Web Site Assistance

Contact: Mike Zakrajsek,

membership director and site moderator at

sgsi.membership@gmail.com for:

Site Registration Issues Membership Information Surname Index Contact: Sedaj Tesch

newsletter editor and site moderator at

sedaj@sloveniangenealogy.org for

Forum Posting Issues Article /Research Submissions Newsletter Information State Chapter Updates Calendar of Events

At the first meeting of the 2016-2017 season of the Slovensko Rodoslovno Drustvo (SRD--Slovenia’s genealogy society) held in Ljubljana on September 14, the former Slovenian jurist, pol-itician, and Minister of Justice for Slovenia, Lov-ro Sturm, presented Rose Marie Macek Jisa a newly published book, GORENJSKE DRUZINE V 18. STOLETJU, for SGSI’s Research Center collection.

The title in English is “Gorenska Families of the 18th Century” and is a transcription of the first census ever taken in Slovenia in 1754. Empress Maria Teresia ordered this census for the entire Austrian Empire. The book contains 744 pages of family names including the ages of each person, the father’s profession, and other information. Transcribed in Latin and German, the book has an extensive index of translations of these languages to Slovenian.

The book was underwritten by the Bojana and Vide Ribnikar Foundation of California in memory of American Slovenian, Borut Praha. Tone Krampac of the Archbishrop Archives of Ljubljana transcribed the material from the origi-nal documentary records.

A listing of the towns/villages included in this census will appear on SGSI’s website under Re-search, Genealogy Resources. If your family is from any of these place names, contact the SGSI Research Center at sgsi.rc@gmail.com or call 440-361-5600 for more information.

SGSI Membership

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Cleveland, Ohio 44103-1633

The Slovenian Genealogy Newsletter is published by the Slovenian Geneal-ogy Society International, Inc. Permission is granted to duplicate or photo-copy this newsletter; however, you must give credit to individual authors and to the Slovenian Genealogy Society International, Inc. as the source of your information.

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Contact Membership Chair , Mike Zakrajsek at:

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Mike is your main contact with regard to membership information and mailing address changes or corrections. Be sure to let him know if your email or postal addresses change. Contact him if you have any questions about your member-ship.

SGSI, Inc.

Chairman Emeritus:

Al Peterlin

Volume 30~ Issue 4

Board of Directors:

Lorraine Kaup, John Kirn, Joseph Zupancic, Robert Kuhel, Rose Marie Macek Jisa, Betsy Nosse, Christine Panchur

Executive Committee:

President: Rose Marie Macek Jisa

Vice-President: Betsy Nosse

Secretary: John Kirn

Treasurer: Robert Kuhel

Membership Chair: Mike Zakrajsek

Newsletter Editor: Sedaj Tesch

Research Center Administrator: Frances Coberly

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Great Lakes Tech Solutions, LLC

Visit us at: www.sloveniangenealogysociety.org