Grubisno Polje?

[Eugenia]

Hello, my name is EUGENIA PEJNOVIC and as you can read I am of croatian heritage. MY father´s father came to Argentina from Croatia in 1928 as did many other inmigrants in that time. Unfortunately I never met my grandfather as he died before I was born. Nevertheless, I have always wanted to know about his life and where he came from. We know that until the time he died, he had relatives in Croatia -more especifically in this town "Grubisno Polje". The thing is that I haven´t been able to find it on the internet and today I´ve come across your site, which is in English and a blessing for me...

I would appreciate it a lot if you could help me by telling me what I can do to find information about this town where my grandfather came from and to find out if we still have relatives there. I would like it so much to contact them!

Looking forward to hearing from you soon,

[Anna]

Dear Eugenia,


Unfortunately, we don't really deal with Croatian genealogy, but here's a few tips and pointers that we can pass on to you.

Firstly, taking a look in the online Croatian phone directory (http://www.htnet.hr/imenik/fset.html) we found 221 people with the surname "Pejnovic" in the whole of Croatia. Surprisingly, only 3 of them live in the Bjelovar-Bilogora county, in which Grubisno Polje is situated. If you grandfather arrived in Argentina in 1928, I am sure that you must still have some relatives in Croatia.

You're right, there's not much about the town on the Internet. However, from our book of Croatian towns, is says that it is a small town near the Ilova and Cesma rivers in western Slavonia, 21km north of Daruvar and 27 km southwest of Virovitica - its population is 3,501. The main economy is farming, livestock breeding, food, chinaware and wood & timber industries. It was first mentioned in history books in the 15th century as a parish. The parish church of St. Joseph (Croatian: Svetog Josipa) was built in 1781. The local tourist office is located at Trg bana Jelacica 1.

If you have any more details, we can try and forward them to the main daily newspaper in Zagreb, Vecernji List, and ask them to help in your genealogy search. However, we don't guarantee that they will do so, as sometimes they help us and sometimes not...

Please note that we do not charge for our services.

A great website for Croatian genealogy search is www.croatia-in-english.com.

Good luck!

[Rachel]

Hi Eugenia & Anna,

If you decide to continue this search, I am willing to help! I could check for Pejnovic in Grubisno, call them, etc..
My father met my American relatives (which parents went to the US also around the end of 1st WW) last year and it was a great feeling, especially for our American relatives!

Rahela

[Anna]

Hi Rahela,

Thanks for your input on this message board. We have no further info from Eugenia at the moment, so we will see how it progresses.


Thanks again,

Anna