There are cemetery records available and people who can do this query on your behalf we can recommend . If you are a member of SGS Rodoslovlje  send me a PM and I will arrange it - BUT:

-you will need  to provide the correct ORIGINAL spelling of the surname for the period, and more information -year  of birth, religious affiliation.

What is the *von Lazar* referring to - is it a nobility title that can be substantiated, the name of his father, a separate second surname (Hungary) ....?

I don't think I am a member of SGS because I only signed up for the free access.  I have a translated copy of August Boyne von Lazar's death certificate from the director of the Belgrade City Hospital at the time (1877) a Dr. Gonsioroffsky.  I do not know what religion August was except that he was most likely not Catholic.  The information I have comes from letters written by the then Serbian Minister of Finance at Belgrade, Cedomilj Mijatovic, who later became the Minister of Foreign Affairs.  Mr. Mijatovic was the person who met August Boyn[e] and was the one who arranged for his burial and was apparently the only one at his graveside when he was "buried among the poor in the highest spot of the cemetery of Belgrade, whence there is a lovely view over the Danube." Mr. Mijatovic gave his information to 2 authors who wrote essays about August Boyne.  According to the stories, August was born in Chemnitz, Saxony, Germany on August 5, 1818.  He came to USA in 1850 and in 1875 he traveled to Belgrade, Serbia and died there in 1877.  The story says he descends from an Andria Obilitch who had a son Frederic, born in Brandenburg on May 7, 1744 who had a son John born on June 12, 1784 who had a son August (my 2nd great grandfather) who was born in Chemnitz on August 5, 1818.  I have no names of the mother's.  August said he was descended from a family who was closely related to a Prince Lazar. 

I apologize for the length of this post.  Can I send attachments to you?  I have the story (written by Eugene Schuyler who was American minister to Greece, Romania and Serbia during that time) and August Boyn(e) von Lazar's death certificate if you would like.  Even if it won't help in locating the cemetery record it is a wonderful little piece of Serbian history.

Thank you.

Jugoslava is right, you need to be going after birth certificates and official extracts from official sources.

As for the part about Prince Lazar I do need to put some things in perspective. First, Lazar was never a prince but a despot and the difference is rather large. Second, there are no direct descendants alive today. I have had extensive contact with the Crown Council (of which some sit in our board) in the past about issues like this. Of the medieval nobility there are no direct descendants. Also please note that Serbia has a Crown Prince, HRH Aleksandar Karadjordjevic. And that at the time your great-grandfather was alive there was strive between two families, namely Karadjordjevic and Obrenovic. Which were both contesting the throne. Subsequently, a lot of misinformation has been going around in those days. Until now there has never been any genealogical data made available that would state otherwise with regard to the Lazarevic, Brankovic or other important families.

What I do think is a feasible hypothesis in your case is that you family lived in the military zone of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It wasn't uncomon for families in service of the Empire to be rewarded with the title of count, duke or knight in an order.

Please do not waste time and money on books, or organizations that claim to represent nobility etc. Your information should come from the national archives of Serbia. You could consider becoming a member and post all other private sensitive data in our member forums which are not availible for the public.

Please note that at the Belgrade Cemetary website, there is no online data available about the names you gave: http://www.beogradskagroblja.rs   But I do not know for sure if the spelling is accurate.

Šabac had no Obilić nobility that lived in the castles at the time Andria Obilich was  supposedly born to a master of one - it was a crude military fortress reinforced by the Austrians,  in which and later around which people settled, that was originally built by the Ottomans and not Serbian kings

The essay is a nice piece of literature, but  I think Sergej and others will be better at explaining why, the link it portrays with Kosovo battle nobility, heroic kings and legendary Obilić remains in the realm of literature, not genealogy or history . Have you checked the Saxony archives - the surname  variants  of *Boyne* and several toponyms exist there, that are the  likely origin of it. I would look closely into records of soldiers who served in Belgrade-based regiments and fought there.

Čedomilj Mijatović, as far as I can remember from my English lit lectures where he ended up on the account of his works in English and translations, had a penchant for bending the historical facts into romanticized tales and dabbling into the occult . Even his objective biographers admit that his historical novels are* literary glorification of medieval Serbian history* .  He was a  vivid and  extraordinary Byronesque figure in our history,  . Any original correspondence of his would be of great historical value, so I am very interested  to see them if you have copies of his letters you mentioned. He did entertain quite a large number of people who claimed descendancy to Serbian throne in various parts of the world during his career and published articles on them - apparently , it was a popular thing back then .

The essay  by Eugene Schuyler on the descendant of serbian kings is a beutiful addition to your family legend and is interesting for us here, but as far as facts go, you would need to have any original document or person mentioned in it  validated by historians first to corraborate and check each piece of the information against existing documents and sources  - vital recors, conscription records, military reports, official correspondence. It is typical  of this and other Western works, the way in which they include bits of original folk tales and local history fact to corraborate and construct - a story.

The main inconsistency about the account of the funeral is that it is highly unlikely that a serving Prime Minister  at the time (Jovan Ristić if the year of death is 1873, or Stevča Mihailović if the year of death was 1877) would have attended a burial of anyone in the section of the cemetery reserved for the poor .

Also, the City Hospital director  at the time was dr. Jovan Valenta.

I would  appreaciate it if you send me the original death certificate of August Boyne (rather than the translation or transcript), only based on that original document I can check if any records exist of his burial in the archives of Serbia and direct you further . The original old cemeteries were transfered from the growing  inner  city after your ancetor was buried to a new location. As the graves in the poor section on the city land were usually unmarked and without headstones or family who paid for its keeping,  you can probably only look for the reconstruction of the approximate location of the original grave. My email is [email protected]

I am trying to discover if there are any records in Belgrade about the death/burial of August Boyne von Lazar.  He died on August 13, 1877 in Belgrade and was buried "among the graves of the poor in the old (now-disused) churchyard of St. Mark".  Chedomil Mijatovich said he and "the protestant pastor" he called (when August died), buried him.  In a document I have he mentions Dr. Kongourobsky, and Dr. Vladen Georjejivitch.  I have a copy of the letter and also a copy of what was sent to my 2nd great grandmother - the death certificate.  I would post those documents here for your review if I knew how.

Thank you, Connie Ihm

Hello Connie,

Click on this link to create a new topic in the members only forum:  http://www.rodoslovlje.com/en/node/add/forum/92

You will then see fields such as "Subject", "Body", and a little bit below that "File Attachements".

Click on Add a new file and locate this file you want to add on your harddrive. Then click on Upload. The file is added to your post. Add your message and click post. That is all to it. Let me know if you need assistence.