Language (#52ancestors Week 10)

 #52ancestors

Week 10: Language

Back to David’s family for this one.  His maternal great-grandfather, Frank Finc (pronounced Finch or Fince), has been a bit challenging.  Depending on the source and time, his birthplace was listed as Austria or Yugoslavia, but he was Slovenian.  It’s amazing how much geography and history you learn while doing genealogy!

His 1904 marriage license says he was born in Austria; his 1907 Declaration of Intention (for citizenship) says he was born in St. Ved Austria.  The 1910 census says he was born in Aust. Slovenian; 1920 census says he was born in Austria.  His birthplace is listed as Letia, Austrilick, on his daughter’s birth certificate and Letia, Austria, on his son’s birth certificate; his son’s death certificate gives his birthplace as Austria Sentwood.  His daughter (David’s grandmother) said he was born in Yugoslavia but it was Austria at the time of his birth.  Whew!  When I did a search for Saint Ved, Google suggested Sankt Veit (there was more than one), but it had nothing for Letia, Austrilick, or Sentwood, so I was still stumped.

 His brother John’s birth info was a little more straight-forward but still no real leads:  Aust (Slovenian) (1910 census), Austria (1913 marriage license), Yugo-Slov (1920 census), Czechoslavakia (1930 census), and Austria (1940 census).

 I joined an Austrian Genealogy group on Facebook and dumped all this info in their laps and begged for help to figure out the birthplace.  They suggested Šentvid (which would explain “Sentwood”) but said there were several places with that name (like saying Columbia, USA, which could mean any one of 27 states!).  One researcher suggested Šentvid pri Stični in Slovenia.  I looked it up in Wikipedia and the German name for it is Sankt Veit (which matches “St Ved”).  The church there is dedicated to Saint Vitus (Slovene sveti Vid).  The researcher actually managed to find the birth records for both Frank (1880) and his brother John (1869), but the church register is in German, so their names are given as Franz and Johann.

 The Austrian group suggested that I join the Slovenian Genealogy group since they have more resources.  There are instructions on how to use the church parish records for birth, marriage, and death, but there is a bit of a learning curve, so I haven’t tackled it yet (website is in Slovenian and must be translated, and the records are in German).  But I know that Frank and John’s parents, Bernard / Bernhard Finc and Maria Kolisa or Kalesa have a marriage record there somewhere, just waiting to be found.  And their own birth records.  And death records.  And Frank’s wife was also from Austria / Slovenia.  A genealogist is never satisfied! :-)

(John's 1869 birth record)

(Frank's 1880 birth record)