Bosnia and Herzegovina Getting Started
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How to Research[edit | edit source]
- Identify what you know: Work from the known to the unknown. Don't jump straight back to a distant ancestor. Begin with the present and confirm/document the information and relationships as you work your way back.
- Document/source your tree: As you gather information, identify where and who each piece of information came from. Evaluate how reliable the sources are, and ensure you are interpreting them correctly. Don't simply accept ancestral information on your tree. Instead, look for records or other reliable sources to support each date, place, and relationship.
- Decide what you want to learn: Have a specific research goal or objective. This is defined by pursuing a specific piece of information about a specific ancestor. An example of a bad, or too-generic research goal is: "I want to know more about my great-grandfather." An example of a good research goal is: "I want to find the marriage date of my great-grandparents."
- Select records to search: Each country's record-keeping practices are different. See your country's Record Finder table to determine what kind of record could provide the desired ancestral information. Search the desired records.
- Analyze/use the information: When you find new sources, carefully evaluate them to ensure they are about the correct ancestors, and that the information in the evidence is being accurately interpreted. Cite or document your sources in your family tree establish the accuracy of your findings.
Beginning Research in Bosnia and Herzegovina[edit | edit source]
- Finding Town of Origin - locating the town your ancestor was from
- Record Finder - gives suggestions for records to search
- Online Learning - Video Classes
Before doing family history research in Bosnia and Herzegovina, you will need to find:
- the actual name of an ancestor
- the date of birth, marriage, and death (can be estimated)
- the place of origin
- the religion of an ancestor
Determine the actual name of an ancestor[edit | edit source]
- Some ancestors adopted Anglicized names: this occurred often with given names and to a lesser extent with surnames.
- Surnames may have changed during wartime when immigrants found themselves in a new country now at war with their former homeland.
- Sometimes these changes may have occurred in more than one generation.
Determine the date of birth, marriage, and death[edit | edit source]
- If an exact date is not known, estimate the dates based on other information.
- From a marriage date, it can be estimated that a man was married at age 25 and a woman at age 21.
- It can be estimated that a first child was born one year after the parent's marriage and that subsequent children were born every 2 years after that.
Determine the place of origin[edit | edit source]
- Records are kept on a town or parish level, thus an exact town of origin must be known.
Determine the religion of an ancestor[edit | edit source]
- Until the 1900s, vital records were kept by church parishes or Jewish congregations.
- The records of different religions were kept separately.
- Determine the ancestor's religion by first searching Roman Catholic records; Catholicism was the dominant religion in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.
- Not every village in Bosnia and Herzegovina had its own parish and often, several smaller villages belonged to one parish.
- Use a gazetteer to determine the proper record keeping jurisdiction.