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Books: Na Razmed'u

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Na Razmed'u, 1997, Vesna Miovic'-Peric', 448 pages; ISBN 953-154-082-9. Translation of the title: On the Borderline. Published by the Institute for Historical Sciences in Dubrovnik which is a branch of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Photo of cover.


This book is entirely in Croatian except for a 4-page summary in English. The reason it is of interest to genealogists who read only English is because of its extensive indexes: 21 pages of surnames and 9 pages of place names. Lists of surnames with corresponding sources are hard to find in Croatia, and especially ones that go back to the 1600s. This is a real treasure. The only other such lists that I have found are in the books of Vekaric' and Kapetanic'.

The subject of this book is the relationship between the Dubrovnik Republic and the Ottoman Empire between 1667 and 1806. During this time, the Empire was the only land neighbor that Dubrovnik had.

The author has carefully examined many documents from the Dubrovnik Archives that pertain to relations between the two countries. Many of these documents contain the names and/or villages of the common people, and therein lies its interest to genealogists. For example, I found one reference to the surname I was researching. From the source listed in this book, I went to the Dubrovnik Archive, copied the text, and then had it translated into English. It said that in 1686 my relative was suspected of running contraband between the two countries. This is very good information for the family history book I am writing. In fact, this is the only reference to this man that has been found.

A few (121) of these documents have been summarized in this book but most of them are simply referenced, which means you must go to the Dubrovnik Archive to see the originals. But, difficult as this may seem, 99% of the work has been done for you. You would NEVER find these documents on your own. I will try to list the surnames and villages on this website in the future.

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