I am attaching the page from La Lorraine's passenger manifest with Ilija Borovica listed on row 11.

The manifest is to big, but if its on Ellis Island we will find it. Let us look into it and get back to you.

Oops, here it is on Ellis Island.

I found an entry in the 1827 Cetin Grad vital records that looks to me to contain the name Škorić. Trying to attach it to the post. Is anyone here able to read this?

If it is helpful, I've also shared Ilija Borovica's A-File and Milka Škorić's A-File.

Gotta love those immigration records. Ok, I will post again after this so bare with me as it will take some time and I need to run some errands soon.
Stara Kršlja is an area indeed in Croatia that is known to be part of the Krajina region. You might have noticed in the post with Mylene where I mentioned that this area has been hit hard during the WWI, WWII and the last Balkan Civil wars. Needless to say a lot of churches and archives got hit and both the human and historic damage is profound.

As for the nationality part, being born in Croatia made them Croatian. Ethnically they would be Serbian. Back in those days it wasn't a big deal as Serbs and Croats had a good understanding. This resulted in the following, Croatia was predominately Catholic with the exception of the Serbian areas of Dalmatia and Krajina. In the areas where there were no Orthodox churches Serbs used Catholic churches and vice versa. Between WWI and WWII the animosity between Serbs and Croats would grow, before that it was virtually non-existent. It is confusing but it might result in finding your records in Catholic archives and the Serbian Orthodox Church kinda refuses cooperation. Its political....

Stara Kršlja used to have around 700+ inhabitants in 1857, before WWII this dropped and afterward spiraled down with 3 people living there now under UN mandate to repatriate the indigenous inhabitants after operation Storm in the 90's ( https://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stara_Kr%C5%A1lja).

Now the surname Borovica is correct, however Serbo-Croatian as it is uses different cases so depending on the sentence you might see the surname in a sentence as Borovice. It is used by both Croats and Serbs, the root of the word comes from the juniper tree. Give or take a couple of dozen people today in Croatia still have that surname. The name is also used in Bosnia and Serbia.

Cetingrad is the same story, in Krajina and heavily hit during the wars. As for Škorić, its a really common surname.

Now before I end part I of my message 🙂

All Catholic records and civil records in Croatia have been microfilmed. The same cannot be said for the Serbian Orthodox Church, what can I say, it's the Serbian Orthodox Church. I will go and check some details from your message and I will write part II later on, hopefully this weekend 😉 But don't tie me on that 🙂 Oh, and yes the A-files do help.

I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Thank you Sergej!

I have a few more pertinent documents. The marriage license of Milka Škorić and Ilija Borovica states that Milka's parents were Johan and Stanna, and Ilija's parents were George and Milica. The death certificate of Milka Škorić states that her father's name was John Skorich and that her mother's maiden name was Stella Davich. Her son Ralph Radovich was the witness for her death certificate. Milka had a brother Lazar Škorić and his death certificate is a little strange. Milka was the witness. She said that Lazar's father was Joseph (not John/Johan/Jovan) and she put down her own name in the section where the mother's maiden name should go. I also have Ilija Borovica's death certificate, but the witness did not know his parents' names.

I forgot to mention -- I have a document from a family member that was recording some genealogical information and it says that Milka was born in Šturlić, not Cetingrad. As I understand it, Cetingrad is both a village and a county (općina). Is it possible that at the time Milka was born (1892) that Šturlić village was part of Cetingrad county?

Ah interesting. Šturlić is geographically in that region and only 17km from Cetingrad. The exact borders shifter from time to time so it was under the influence of that city as its they only major city there. Let me check the docs you included and get back to you.

Ok, while I go check out some more sources that I have, I suggest you do the following. The Serbian Orthodox Church has an eparchy still in that region that you could contact with a request for information. Their website is: http://www.eparhija-gornjokarlovacka.hr/Eparhija-L.htm . You can use Google Translate. But according to their website their local office is in Karlovac:

jerej Slaviša Simaković
C. Medovića 11; 47 000 Karlovac,
Tel/Faks: 047/411 506; Mob: 098/188 26 48
E-mail: [email protected]

Oh, and please check these articles:
https://www.rodoslovlje.com/gomirje-district/
https://www.rodoslovlje.com/forums/topic/sjenicak-vrginmost-croatia-place-of-origin/
https://www.rodoslovlje.com/books/families-relocated-from-karlovac-croatia/
https://www.rodoslovlje.com/forums/topic/families-relocated-after-the-wwii-from-karlovac-county-to-vojvodina/

It will give you a feel of that region and the background. I will go dig a bit further and will follow-up.

Thank you again! I will contact the eparchy.

I found from their website that Mašvina is the parish for Stara Kršlja. FamilySearch has vital records for Mašvina from 1931 (although it is listed as 1831). I found several mentions of Borovici in those records. I also saw many Mandići in the Mašvina vital records (Rade Mandić was listed as brother in law of Ilija Borovica on his passenger manifest). Does the existence of the 1931 Mašvina vital records mean that earlier records were also likely preserved or can that not be extrapolated?

I also searched the Privrednik database for Borovica and there were four results, three of which were from Stara / Nova Kršlja. Unfortunately Ilija was not one of them. I searched Škorić as well, but I didn't see any results from Cetingrad or Šturlić although many were from the Krajina region.

Ok, your great-grandfather was lucky because he immigrated. Stara Kršlja and that whole region got heavily hit during WWII. And the Jasenovac Research Institute keeps a list of victims in that concentration camp. Now unlike other camps the regime in Croatia at that time also locked up ethnic Serbs. There isn't a family from that region that didn't experience any losses. I checked their database and came up with the following:

Family Name First Name Father's Name Place Of Origin Year Of Birth
BOROVICA BRANKO DRAGIĆ RAKOVICA 1918
BOROVICA ILIJA ÐURA NOVA KRŠLJA 1897
BOROVICA ILIJA RADE NOVA KRŠLJA 1876
BOROVICA JANKO SIMO NOVA KRŠLJA 1936
BOROVICA JOVO PETAR RAKOVICA 1934
BOROVICA LATA LAZO GRABOVAC DREŽNIČKI 1905
BOROVICA LAZO NIKOLA GRABOVAC DREŽNIČKI 1888
BOROVICA LJUBO PETAR RAKOVICA 1933
BOROVICA MANE ÐURA NOVA KRŠLJA 1907
BOROVICA MARA PETAR RAKOVICA 1942
BOROVICA MIHAJLO VUK SELIŠTE DREŽNIČKO 1888
BOROVICA MILADIN NIKOLA NOVA KRŠLJA 1938
BOROVICA MILAN PETAR NOVA KRŠLJA 1941
BOROVICA MILAN PANTELIJA SUBOTICA 1924
BOROVICA MILJA LAZO GRABOVAC DREŽNIČKI 1924
BOROVICA MILUNA JOSO RAKOVICA 1902
BOROVICA NADA PETAR NOVA KRŠLJA 1942
BOROVICA NIKOLA MIHAJLO NOVA KRŠLJA 1927
BOROVICA PETAR JOSO RAKOVICA 1905
BOROVICA PETAR RADE SLUNJ 1909
BOROVICA SIMA ÐURA NOVA KRŠLJA 1910
BOROVICA TIMO UROŠ NOVA KRŠLJA 1913
BOROVICA ÐURA NIKOLA NOVA KRŠLJA 1862
BOROVICA ÐURA NIKOLA NOVA KRŠLJA 1873
BOROVICA ÐURO MANE ALIBUNAR 1924
BOROVICA ÐURO SIMO NOVA KRŠLJA 1937

Check this link: http://www.jasenovac.org/victim_search.php?field=lastname&searchtype=contains&data=borovica&submit=Go

Downbelow the only Borovica's I could find in the Croatian phonebook:

-3
BOROVICA KSENIJA
Karta
Dr. Franje Račkog 39
32270 Županja
032 833036

BOROVICA MIRJANA
Karta
Kapela Korenička 7B
53230 Kapela Korenička
053 8909229

BOROVICA MIRJANA
Karta
Prilaz Gjure Deželića 63
10000 Zagreb
091 5574023

Because a large group of Serbs also moved to Vojvodina after the war I would suggest the following steps.

1. Contact the Serbian Orthodox Church in Masvina and see what they have and if they know anything about the families from Stara Krslja,
2. See if there are any leads to Vojvodina, as there are over a 100 people there with that surname and the chances are pretty big they are related: http://www.11811.rs/BeleStrane/Pretraga/sve/sve/sve/borovica/sve/1/2L6ROY18

As for older records, it is hard to rule out the existence of that. I would take the data from your great-grandfather and see if you can pinpoint his parents, siblings etc and first work towards you. If you run into living famility today they might help with the info they may have.

That is all I can do from here for now. Hope this helps.