The place of origin of your ancestors MITRIĆ was village FELNAK in (today) Romania.  This village , and the whole region, has a historical ethnic Serbian minority presence - so your ancestors were Serbs, from Romania.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felnac

The other family was from KETFELJ (Galu) , same area - that village was traditionally  with ethnic Serbian majority.

 

Ethnic Serbian MITRIĆ family from Felnak, Temeš (Timisoara ) is found in the Privrednik database:

 

1904	Mitrić	Vladimir	Nikolin	366 Fenlak, Temeš.	Milivoj Popović par. 211	Breslauer Karl, krojač Vukovar
1910	Mitrić	Todor	Petrov	303 Fenlak	Maletić Nikola, učit., 27	Dimitrijević Pera, trgovac meš., Beočin

What the records show:

Mitrić Vladimir, son of NIkola Mitrić, born in 1894 (+ /-  5 years) , address Felnak number 366, was sent in 1904. to be a tailor apprentice

Mitrić Todor, son of Petar Mitrić,  born 1890 (+/- 5 years) , address Felnak number 303, was sent in 1910  to be a merchant apprentice .

-about Privrednik database:

http://www.rodoslovlje.com/en/documentation/serbian-trade-association-privrednik-merchant-database

 

I have to check records for VUKAN as surname both in the same area or elsewhere.

 

HELEN was JELENA

JEFFA is not a valid first name .

GEORGE  - ĐURAĐ, ĐURO, ĐORĐE.

 

Your ancestors were Eastern Orthodox and belonged to the Serbian Orthodox Church.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIeHB6ZHsjo

 

and you should definitely check out out the rest of our research section :

http://www.rodoslovlje.com/en/documentation/austria-hungary

 

It will take me  up to a week just to go through all the records and books/ academic sources available about Serbs in Romania, so please be patient.

For descendants of same families - you would need to contact the Serbian minority council in Timisoara, and the Serbian Orthodox Church there- my parish priest here in Budapest, Hungary is also Serbian from Romania, so I will ask him .

Thank you for replying so quickly, After reading your post the names make more sense.

George and Helen are my wifes Grandparents.

George Mitrich was said to have made multiple trips back and forth to bring workers to Pittsburgh area. He also spoke at least 5 languages. The area in Crawford County Pa where he lived is full of other Serbian names like John Marovich, Sam Tatolovick, Nick Nickovich and Katulich. I have records that some of these people lived and worked at Steel Mills in Pittsburgh before moving to Crawford County.

George had two sons, The Oldest named Peter Mark and youngest was Nickolas.

I have the 1920 US census that shows a Jeff Mitrich living with them and was 56 years old and immigrated in 1903. It has him listed as Uncle to the head of house which was George.

The sons names coincide with the information you supplied above.

I have the shipping papers from the ship Freidrich der Grosse the left Bremen on 9-17-1904 and arrived in N.Y on 9-25-1904. It shows his last residence as Foulak and he going to Pittsburgh to be with his Father Jeffa. I cannot read the first letter clearly is could something other than the letter J.

Again thank you for your assistance it has been very helpful.

Jeff Dahl

I can take a look at the manifests and census lists you have, send them to my email [email protected].

Surnames MARAVIĆ and TATALOVIĆ are ethnic Serbs from Croatia,  most that emigrated were from Gomirje Monastery  area ( Ogulin, Drežnica, Karlovac) .

https://sites.google.com/site/thegomirjechronicle/home/gomirje-names

KATULIĆ family is Croatian, from Velika Gorica.

NIKOVIĆ family is from Montenegro, but also lived in Serbia .

(all data on the places of origin is second half of XIX century)

 

Your George would have easily spoken five languages ( most people from such communities were/are fully bilingual) :

-Serbian -mother tongue

-Romanian - language of the majority population in his country of origin - Romania

-Hungarian - official language there at the time, strongly induced by the authorities upon non-Hungarians

-German - language of the military which was obligatory, as well as the language of the significant Donauschwaben community present in the region,

-English.