Karlobag
A small town under the Velebit where this family's mothers came from — and, since 14 September 2026, the only parish in this archive whose films have been opened end to end and whose census has been read.
Four of Hedviga's great-great-great-grandparents were born here: the Pilipići, the Urode, the Smojveri and the Gerkacsi. For weeks the parish table carried unknown in all three of its columns, and four walls on the chart said «ranges not checked» — which reads like a gap and was really an unopened door.
The door was opened. All three films, image by image. The holdings line now reads: Births 1691-1770, 1771-1804, 1804-1861 · Marriages 1736-1804, 1804-1861 · Deaths 1774-1804, 1804-1861 · AND a Church Census (Stanje duša)
What the parish actually holds
| Film | Images | What is on it |
|---|---|---|
| Births 1691–1770 · 1771–1804 | 327 | Two bound volumes, HDA 426 and HDA 427 |
| Births · Deaths · Marriages 1804–1861, with indexes — and the older Marriages 1736–1804 and Deaths 1774–1804 | 435 | Six books on one film |
| Church census — Stanje duša | 122 | HDA 715. Not in this archive's parish table until that day |
The language changes under you
Read the births film front to back and you watch the parish change what it wrote in.
| 1690s – 1750s | Croatian, in prose. Image 6: «Na 6 Oktobra … karstih ga Pop Šimun Šimunović … imenom Mihovila» |
|---|---|
| 1723 | Still Croatian — «Na 6 Febrara 1723». And note the order: image 4 is 1723, image 6 is the 1690s. The front leaves are not in chronological order. Do not infer a date from an image number on this film |
| 1761 | Latin, still prose. «Anno Domini 1761 — Josephus Sarich Parochus baptizavit…» |
| from about 1780 | Latin, tabular. Image 220, 1782, and in the godparent column «Antonia Conjux Dni Francisci de Justiniani» |
| 1852 onward | The death register turns Croatian — «Godine 1854» — while the household census keeps Latin headings and slips Croatian months into its dates: «24 lipnja», «† 22 svibnja 1853» |
This archive already knew one Karlobag volume was in Croatian. It is the earlier half of two of them — the same glagolitic-littoral habit it found at Novi Vinodolski in 1650 and Grižane in 1738.
A house of seven, and a daughter this archive knew only as a name
The Stanje duša does not give an age. It gives a date of birth to the day, and a communion column for every year from 1844 — so a household can be watched year by year rather than event by event.
Image 48, right-hand page, written Pilepich — the parish's own spelling:
| Name | Ætas | |
|---|---|---|
| Pilepich Vicko | 17 Nov. 805 | ahnentafel 26 — the tree's date exactly |
| Matia ux. | 23 April 810 | ahnentafel 27 — exactly |
| Joso f. | 14 Oct. 835 | new |
| Matia f. | 18 Sept. 838 | ahnentafel 13 — exactly |
| Vice f. | 16 Febr. 847 | new |
| Jure f. | no date entered | new |
| Maria Jurka f. | 24 lipnja 852 | new |
Four siblings where there were none. And three Pilipić households more sit on the facing page and the next — Pilepich Joso, Pelepich Jakov Bilja, and a widow Pilepich Maria with an Oliva among her children, which is what a reused given name looks like from the outside. Four Pilipić households in one small town, none joined to another by a document.
The Urode, and a near-miss worth keeping
The U section is images 64 and 65 and holds three Uroda households — and ahnentafel 54 is in none of them.
One is Uroda Jone, entered with a brother and a sister beside the head and four children dead in ten years, the deaths written into the margin in Croatian months. One is Uroda Jure. And one is Uroda Maria vid., born 18 March 1789, keeping Ive (1811), Vicko (1816) and Kate Maria (1820).
Ive, Vicko and Kate Maria are the right generation and town to be ahnentafel 27's brothers and sister, born either side of her 23 April 1810. Candidates, not kin.
One word ruled out the obvious answer
The death film carries an alphabetical index — images ~168–192, a printed letter at the head of each column, with Cognomen et Nomen · dies · mensis · annus · folium. It turns a fifty-seven-year register into a lookup, and nobody here knew it was there. Under U it lists fourteen Uroda deaths between 1808 and 1846.
Maria uxor piscatoris Georgii Uroda annorum 45 … die 7ª hujus sepultum est Carlobagi in cœmeterio communi, confessa mihi Perxevich…
The date is the tree's exactly. The age — annorum 45, born about 1789 — is the tree's exactly. And she is uxor, not vidua. Her husband was alive that day, which rules out the Georgius Uroda who died in 1808 and the one who died in 1817 — the obvious answer, the one a hurried reader takes. It also gives ahnentafel 54 a trade nothing here knew: piscator, a fisherman.
And he is still not dated. Folio 66, 11 January 1846: «Georgius Uroda annorum 72, piscator» — same name, same trade, the only Georgius to die after his wife. But 72 in 1846 means born about 1774 against the tree's 22 April 1777. Three years out, and this archive is not calling that a match.
What is in range now, and what is next
Range-checking the films turned 6 walls on this line from «not known» into «go and read it», and a fifth into something better.
| Ahn | Who | Where it stands |
|---|---|---|
| 104 | Jacob Pilipic | Karlobag — in range |
| 108 | Georgi Uroda | Karlobag — in range |
| 109 | Maria Uroda | Her husband's surname |
| 210 | Vicentius (Vicko) Luckinić | Karlobag — in range |
| 211 | Maria Luckinić | Her husband's surname |
| 212 | Josiph Smojver Vukić | Karlobag — in range |
| 220 | Nicolaus Gerkacs | Karlobag — in range |
| 428 | Angelo Bacchi | Karlobag — in range |
| 429 | Catharina | No surname |
The fifth is the interesting one. Maria Uroda is on the chart under her husband's surname, which is the tree's convention and not a record — and you cannot search for a name you do not have. But her marriage of about 1775 is inside the filmed register, and a marriage entry names the bride's father. Maria Luckinić misses by eleven years: hers falls about 1725 and the marriage book begins in 1736.
The town these people lived in
Karlobag is a civitas in its registers, not a village, and it shows. The baptisms read out of it carry a Dominus honorific, a Giustiniani godfather, a Pro-Colonel, a Captain and a Baron von Holstein. Ahnentafel 26 is a cammeralis nauclerus — a chamber shipmaster — and his father a mercator: the first people in this family recorded working at sea. Ahnentafel 54 is a piscator. Godparents include the treasury receiver and the wife of an Italian-named notable.
And in the Hungarian press a Smojver of Karlobag, born 1882, turns up wounded in the casualty lists of 1915.
September 2026 — a generation above ahnentafel 54, and a crypt
This archive carried the Urode as fishermen. In the 1770s they were nothing of the kind.
Ahnentafel 54's own baptism, read at the page. Karlobag, folio 36/37, Anno Dñi 1777, under Aprilis:
Ego Joës Antonius Ivankovich, Parochus Loci, baptizavi Infantem heri natum ex Georgio, et Maria Uroda, Conjugibus, hujus Loci, cui impositum est Nomen Joannis Georgij. Patrini fuerunt Ill[ustrissi]mus D[omi]nus Pro-Colonellus Joannes…
Three things in one sentence. The tree's born 22 April 1777 is the baptism — heri natum puts the birth on the 21st. Ahnentafel 108 and 109 are named, and neither existed here before. And the godfather is a lieutenant-colonel — nobody asks a Pro-Colonellus to stand for a fisherman's son.
The father died in his own crypt. The death index of 1774–1804 — a book nobody here had opened — carries six Urode, and folio 67 of the register, Anno Domini 1791, says why the style mattered:
Dñus Georgius Uroda, munitus omnibus Sacramentis, [in domo] sua obiit, atque die 12ᵃ sepultus est in propria [sua Crypta ante] fores Ecclesiæ Parochialis existente.
Died 10 September 1791; buried on the 12th in his own crypt before the doors of the parish church.
Eight children over twenty years — Dominicus 1764, Petrus Jacobus 1767, Heva Joanna 1769, Maria Catharina 1772, Maria Heva 1773, Joannis Georgÿ 1777, Anton Joanis 1780, Joannis 1784 — and the two eldest names close a loop with that same death index, which buries a Uroda Heva and a Uroda Petrus. Their godparents were officials and officers (11 October 2026, read at the pages): the Chancellor Josephus Kumanović twice, a criminal judge, a standard-bearer and a pro-tribune's wife — and the parents are «Dominus» and «Domina», «Cives» of the town. The godfather of the first child, in 1764, is Antonio Barach «of Šibenik», a thread to the Dalmatian town that a dead «Dume Uroda od Šibenika» of 1739 also names; Maria's maiden name is still not found. The Uroda lines, drawn →
One doubt raised and answered. A Karlobag marriage of 10 February 1806 joins «Joannis filii defuncti Dñi Georgij Uroda» to Maria filia Nicolai Barletich, which briefly put ahnentafel 55's surname in question. It should not have: ahnentafel 27's baptism of 1810 gives the godmother as «Maria conjux Joannis Uroda» — a second couple, the brother and his wife. The 1806 groom is the 1784 child, and the tree's Maria Gerkacs stands.
And a note on where these people live. Georgius, Maria and six of their children are not in the family tree, and this archive has not put them in it — the tree is a MyHeritage export and editing it is the one thing the project does not do. They are recorded instead in sources/found.psv, the archive's own evidence standing beside the tree: ten people so far, read at the page, whom MyHeritage never had.