I have some questions for you.

Did you try searching the LDS family history Library. Croatia's archives have been microfilmed completely in contradiction with e.g. Serbia's archives which havent been microfilmed.

As for your questions:

1. What is the earliest date you can backtrace the surname Prostran? And is there a difference between the first names used in the different families?

2. Partially, e.g. the Serbs in Dalmatia always lived there and some of the moved to Krajina. Others in Krajina came from Kosovo around 1700 and others came from Bosnia. The problem with doing genealogy amongst Serbs is that our archives are in a terrible state. Its a disgrace what can I say. A lot of Serbian surnames originate in Montenegro, however there are a lot of duplicate surnames even Brankovic and others that are not related at all.

If you can answer the question on when the surname Prostran was first used I might be able to help out further. Please also tell me if you live in the region because that might help you in case I direct you to the archives.

http://www.rodoslovlje.com/novo/showarticle.php?articleID=49 Some info.

Dear Whyteout,

regarding the Macura surname i can tell you the following.
They were existing (i suppose some of them are still there) at:

Kistanje, Cicvare, Е½egar, Smoković, Ervenik, Lišane Tinjske, Islam Grčki

and all of them have the same guardian Sveti Arhanč‘eo Mihail(Arhanč‘elovdan) like Prostran brotherhood. Probably they came from the same clan (99%), an they are blood conected. I suposse that they belong to Montenegrin clan of Vasojevici, because Vasojevici´s guardian is Arhangel Mihail. They are the biggest clan in Montenegro, maybe in the whole former Yugoslavia.
Try to find your ancestorswith this link:

http://www.benkovac.org.yu/obicaji/prezimena

Every family who praise Saitn Arhangel Mihail could be your relatives.

Bye,
Brane

P.S.
My wife is from Kistanje, so if you need some help with your relatives i shall help you if it is possible.

Thank you Brane, everything you have mentioned is true, including that we celebrate Sveti Arandjeo Mihail.

I have done some research on the topic, and have found some information on Vasojevici at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasojevici

the problem is, I cant seem to find any info on when or even if they even did, settle in dalmacija. But my main goal is find out When my ancestors arrived in croatia, of course not exact date but preferebly within a 100 year range.

I thank you for your help and information that you have provided.

Hy Macura,

I would like to recomend you to read some of this posts, maybe this will help you.

http://p083.ezboard.com/fbalkanscrnagoramontenegroforum.showMessage?topicID=382.topic

There are mentioning Macuras like Ilirian Tribe, and how they asimilated to Vasojevici tribe. Well that can explain your surname and your guardian.
It is possible that Macuras from Dalmatia are part of Macuras tribe from Montenegro, which is asimilated to Vasojevici tribe, and take Saint Arhangel to his guardian.

The Vasojevic have their own website. http://www.vasojevic.com/
Try contacting them and see what info they can give you.

Also I forgot to tell you that my wife´s aunt is married to Macura. They move away from Kistanje to Oriolik (Slavonija).

I have been reading over the post in the EZboards forum but there are some sirious errors in there. The Illirians were extinct by the time the Serbs & Croats arrived in the Balkans. Also, Illirians is a collective name for a group of tribes that are not really related to each other. Most of them were wiped out during the Roman campaigns, and the survivors that we made part of the Roman Empire fell when the Roman Empire was on decline. The Ostrogoths, Visigots, Vandals and Celts moved through the Balkan peninsula killing on in their path even included the highlanders in the mountains. Henceforth the invitation of the Byzantines later on to allows the Serbs and Croats in the region. There are reports of pockets of remaining Celts, but I am sorry to say there are now Illirians.

Serbian has a lot of borrow words, even Celtic, more then 600 of them. Besides that we have German, French, Latin and Greek borrow words.

A lot of the Serbs that came to the Dalmatia region during the settlement in 600 AD underwent a lot of migrations and wars. The migrational pattern of the Serbs is in phases. Basically what is important for you is the following:

1. Are they original inhabitants of Dalmatia or did they come from e.g. Hungaria/Slavonia as the Ugrcic branch did?
2. Are the related to families from Montenegro? There has been a lot of moving/migration between Dalmatia and Montenegro
3. Check the parish records and Croatian state archives, all that you need is there.
4. The fact that e.g. a family is Catholic or Orthodox doesn't necesarely mean that they are ethically Serb or Croat. They could even be of Venetian origina or just simply mixed.

I adivice you make a pedigree at http://www.rodoslovlje.com/rodoslov
That way we can talk easier and I can give you directions into which archives you should look.

Please be aware that the last Balkan war destroyed a lot of churches and their books.

I agree with your post about borrow words Sergej. But also Macuras tribe exist in Montenegro and they asimilated to Vasojevici´s tribe.

It is very hard to conclude to whom belong Macuras from Dalmatia without saga about them and without some useful facts. I had just posts what I found and what I know about them

I hope that I will help to Whyteout after the few contacts with my Wife´s relatives in Dalmatia.

Bye

Pozdrav Brane,

Yes problem is that although there are assimilations that one cannot always say what kind of assimilation this is/was. E.g. adoption or intermarriage. My wife her family is from Dalmatia, Dalmatia has a very long history. If I can be of assistence let me know.

Poz,

I think some key information can be discovered by further studying the village where My fmaily and cousins orginate from, Smokovic near zadar. There is a picture i found somewhere, that is an illustrated map by an italian over 500 years ago that proves Smokovic (Smocovich in the map) existed. Its important to understand Smokovic because it has a long history, as Ive mentioned before.

I kno that Catholic = Croat and Orthodox = Serb is not always correct, but I"m 98% sure my Ancestors from Smokovic are purely serbian, because as long as smokovic existed, it has been described as the only town that far towards zadar that is over 95% serbian (the exceptions being my bunjevkinja mom and a few other croats)

There are some interesting books that you can read on the Serbs in Dalmatia and the influence the Venetians had. But I can also advice you to check Venetian/Italian archives for some periods mainly because they were responsible for some era's administration.

Nice scan though

Vasojevici :

Dragi Srdjane prezime Macura i Prostran nepostoje u spisku prezimena u Plemenu Vasojevic. Samo isto tako znam da su Srbi Krajisnici gotovo svi menjali prezimena kada su se naseljavali na podrucije Dalmacije ,Like ,Banije i Korduna. Mnogi od njih jesu poreklom iz plemena Vasojevica ali i iz drugih Srpskih plemena sa danasnje teritorije crne Gore , posebno plemena brda i Stare Hercegovine. Mislim da bi se to dalo istraziti.

pozdrav

Well, that is interesting. Basically it just brings you back to the Croatian State archives. You can go to their site, they have a partial index already online.

Srdjane you have to find documents about your relatives in church directories.

Try to contact on this site, maybe they would give you usefull information.

http://www.eparhija-dalmatinska.hr/Frames-L.htm