Hi Goran,

Jankovic is a Serbian name. There are also Polish versions of it. Its also a surname and brotherhood name. To find out for sure you need to know from where you grandfather came? Is is Novi Sad?

Yes, all the family on my father's side came from Novi Sad. I have no knowledge of any Polish family or even a hint of the language in my family. I would love to know or at least get some direction in known more of where my family is from and its ancestry. In a genealogy book my father bought many years ago it showed we have some sort of family crest of shield and that way back then someone in the family was knighted, however i have found a few different opinions on where this name is from so I'm not really confident in the validity of that books claims.

Thank you so much for any help you can give.

Goran

Well Jankovic isnt from Janko but is a form of Ivan. What you need to do is first create a pedigree. Use PAF for it at www.familysearch.org

Let me know if you need help with that. As for Coat of Arms etc, 9-10 families in Serbia don't have a Coat of Arms and they are not attached to surnames. Also keep in mind that Jankovic is a comon name.

Sergej,

Thanks for your help with this. I have downloaded the PAF 5 program but i'm not entirely sure what to do with it. Any direction would be greatly appreciated.

Also, i will try and find the book my father bought and scan the coat of arms they had in there.

Thanks again for your help, i look forward to your reply.

Goran

Goran, PAF 5 allows you to put in the data of your family tree starting with you. Basically it works like this if you have the tree in front of you. The tops side is for your fathers line, the down side is for your mothers side. You can additional info when you double click on a name etc. Just play with it a bit and let me know if you run into troulbe. Let me know about that book.

Well, I don´t believe that Jankovic is patronim for some Polish name. It is Serb/Montenegrin or Croat name. If yours ancestor came from Herzegovina, it is possible that you belong to Malesevci clan. Of course if yours family patron is Saint Ignjatije.

It is also a patronym in Poland and there are some Polish families in Vojvodina with that surname. With genealogy you need to base your findings on facts, it is never a given why someone has the surname they have today.

I didn´t know that in Poland existing Jankovics. That is new for me, thanks Sergej.

The spelling of the name is slightly different. It wouldnt be impossible for a Pole to move to Serbia with the name of Jankowicz and that through living there for a while got it changed into Jankovic. Things like that happen all the time.

Thanks for your help guys. Just to note, the patron saint that we celebrate is St. Nikola. Again i don't know how much that'll help because i know a lot of people have him as their patron saint.

It helps a lot. In case you meet another Jankovic. Jankovic is a comon surname, so if the person has the same family saint then there is a big chance you are related. If not then you can rule relation out in most cases. So it gives you an extra check.

Rodjena sam u Novom Sadu 1965god,devojacko prezime mi je Jankovic.Moj otac Todor Jankovic 1938-2001 je rodom iz sela Besenovo (Srem).
Moj deda Kosta Jankovic iz Besenove,rodjen je 1900 - ubijen u ratu 1943god.,bio je ozenjen sa Neskovic Anom iz Vrdnika rodj.1904-1950god.
Pradeda se zvao Laza Jankovic,ozenjen sa Marom,ne znam devojacko prezime.Njegov otac Kosta Jankovic bio je ozenjen sa Milevom Zizakic iz Iriga.Zvali su nas Cincari???
Interesuje me poreklo,odakle dolazimo?
Neko kaze da vodimo poreklo iz Grcke,da smo bili trgovci,a ima i druga varijanta da smo dosli iz Crne Gore.

Goga

There are man JANKOVIC's ..... JANKAJ's (ALBANIAN) from albania. also JANKAJ's-JANKOVICS in montenegro that come from ALBANIAN around 200-300 years back.

LIVAR, BAR that village is an albanian village with JANKOVIC-JANKAJ's

Yes but the larger nothern part of Albania used to be part of MOntenegro and many Albanians there are of mixed stock and most placenames there are originally Serbian but translated into Albanian. Just because borders change doesn't mean that the origin of a name or ethnic background change, thats a comon error. Especially since Jankovic doesn't come from Jankaj but from the Latin name Janko!!

Do note that 300 years ago Albania was not a State, and that although today the relations between Serbs and Albanians are sour they were not 300 years ago.
We are adding the Albanian variants of placenames and surnames to our database, since there are a lot of things we have in comon and its not just "names".