All of the surnames you mentioned in your post are found among ethnic Serbs from Croatia - that is why the country of origin is not Serbia (this was often stated in US census and naturalization documents by Serbs coming from Austro-Hungary and its provences, since the authorities listed them earlier as Austrians, Hungarians or Croats.- the concept of ethnic minorities  who differed from the majority ethnicity of the country they came from was quite unfamiliar )

Without further information, or looking at any documents you have for more clues, i cannot pinpoint one location for you - two out of three surnames were also present clustered in some areas in Bosnia for instance, around the time the person you are researching was born.

You can email me on 

yugaya at gmail dot com

if you want me to look at what information you have and perhaps be able to help you more.

 

I do not think that starting your research with a dozen possible locations I could throw your way would be a smart move - narrowing it down to one or two possibilities  will be much more productive.

 

 

 

Thanks for your reply; however I remain challenged to find any additional information so your quick clues have been helpful. Unfortunately there are no remaining family records that will help to narrow down search options.

A good place to start then would be to establish the year and date of arrival  for your VRAČAR ancestor.

Look through Ellis Island manifests for that surname around the time of his arrival - just remember that in most cases the transcriptional errors are horrendous on that site and the index of names is only a starting point for trying out many variants - always look at original manifests. Also, a good idea would be to find someone who can pronounce the surnames in the original language for you - if you have an idea how they sound you can guess more accuratelly how they might have been mistranscribed by an English native speaker.

People usually came in clusters from same village or family clan.

Here are more than a dozen hits for the exact spelling - VRACAR :

http://www.ellisisland.org/search/matchMore.asp?MID=03474880590904401888&LNM=VRACAR&PLNM=VRACAR&first_kind=1&kind=exact&offset=0&dwpdone=1

They come from Croatia (even some with Belgrade listed as town of origin, because their contact in the old country are relatives living in  the parts of Croatia populated by Serbs like Bukovica).

Places of origin of these VRAČAR immigrants are

Bukovica, (Croatia)

Trebinje, ( Croatia)

Kruškovac( Croatia)

Gradac (Croatia)

Mekinjar (Croatia)

Medak (Croatia)

So the geographical distribution tells you that :

-they were  Serbs of Croatia, who came from  the MILITARY FRONTIER province of the AU empire.

- there are migrational ties to the presence of same surname in Bosnia

- you will need to establish more information to continue your research, as this surname was frequent in many different places in the second half of the XIX century.

 

Good luck and hope this information will help you reconnect with your heritage.

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

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

http://www.amazon.com/Krajina-Chronicle-History-Slavonia-Dalmatia/dp/1892478102