Depends - there are huge variations in what *typical* is or was depending on the location, religion, community... first names were usually typical for a wider area, parish or a family clan. You need to go through parish records in detail.

If your ancesotrs were ethnic Serbs you will find this useful :

http://www.rodoslovlje.com/documentation/naming-customs-among-ethnic-serbs-xix-century

What is the location of the origin of grandfather/ his mother ?

Female first name DEVA - ДЕВА is listed in the dictionary of first names among ethnic Serbs from Lika, Croatia, as well as few other related first names ( Devana, Devica, Devka ).

I can not find record of my grandfather leaving Bosnia. I am wondering if he might have traveled under his brother's name to avoid the WW1 ( was this common?). I have a birth certifiacte form Dolac Glamoc Dated April 7 1890. His name is Simo Vuleta and his father is Risto Vuleta . His mother's name says. rodj. Malosavic. I am interested in trying to figure our where my grandfather was until he popped up on a Pittsburgh Pa census in 1914. I am also interested in finding relatives of Deva .

As far as traveling under someone else's name when it comes to ethnic Serbs is concerned all the cases I reviewed but one that have been blamed on that (or even explained by *experts*) turned out to be a bunch of ideas stitched together into theories that only lack of knowledge of facts and period customs and Serbs in general holds together. Also your ancestor apparently arrived before WWI started if he was already in the US in 1914.

Real possibilities :

1. name and surname and place of origin are so badly misspelled by indexers that only by sheer luck you will find emigration records or ship manifests. Have you tried to locate naturalization papers? Have you obtained records from Serbian Orthodox Church he attended in the US if he remained Serbian Orthodox?
Parish will have had the priests make lists of parishioners and there is often data on things like year of arrival, relatives in the old country, relatives that also emigrated, more detailed information on place of origin including household number and exact parish where they were born

2. Name and surname were written into ship manifests based on travel documents people had with them. If these travel documents were issued in official language like Hungarian for people coming from Austia-Hungary then their surnames will be spelled according to rules of that language, and their first names will be replaced by the equivalent name from Hungarian language. ( Stefan would be István etc).

Also in this category would go emigrants from territories under the Ottoman rule whose family name was subject to patronimic change with each generation, and people would be listed the way the Ottomans recorded their Serbian subjects - with first name and instead of the surname there would be the first name of the father.

According to the information I have from church censuses and Victims of War 1941-1945 census there is a RISTO VULETA who was born in 1870., Dolac, Glamoč, Bosnia and who was killed in 1943. First name of his father was Simo Vuleta too - this would be in line with the naming customs among ethnic Serbs about which you can read more here :

http://www.rodoslovlje.com/documentation/naming-customs-among-ethnic-serbs-xix-century

Do you have any information if your ancestors were in contact with their family in the old country or visited after emigrating ? Do you know of any VULETA relatives who emigrated and then returned( especiall if they returned as volunteers to fight on the side of Serbia in WWI) ?

I have attached for you here the snapshot from the official census of WWII victims, with VULETA family from Dolac, Glamoč.

I hope this helps - other than public records, you should try tracking down descendants of Vuletas from Dolac and Glamoč on social networks and maybe someone who speaks English will be able to tell you more and confirm the information, since oral genealogy tradition was / is strong among Serbs from that area.

For details on how your relatives Vuleta from Dolac were killed during WWII and if there are any more detailed information and accounts available please email me on

[email protected]

I found no records for MALOSAVIC surname anywhere. You should consider it a misspeliing. Since people back then mostly married within their comfort zone of same ethnicity and religion and a few parishes that formed a community, I suggest you look for similar surnames from the same area that would correspond to that spelling you have.

The only corresponding surname from the nearby parishes in Glamoč municipality is MALEŠEVIĆ.

Wonderful!!!! This is the correct surname . It was difficult to read on the birth certificate. I have a census record from 1920 that says my grandfather came in 1914.
I have a question ... How typical would it have been to be a Serb and have Croatian and or Muslim relatives??? I find a lot of Vuletas in Croatia on the social media.

Here is why I thought he was traveling under his brother Illya's name
The arrival date lines up with when he would have got here and the arrival port is close to where he lived in the US>

Ilija Vuleta
Departure Date: 21 Apr 1914
Birth Date: abt 1884
Age: 30
Gender: männlich (Male)
Marital Status: verheiratet (Married)
Residence: Soborau
Ethnicity/Nationality: Österreich (Austrian)
Occupation: Landmann, Tagelöhner

Ship Name: Bosnia

It is a relatively rare surname (more frequent is deriven one VULETIĆ ) and I do not see any other Vuleta ethnicity from Bosnia only Serbs.

Religious conversions which as a consequence created shift in ethnic affiliation did occur a lot in XVI, XVII century but in the Balkans genealogy that research is a very slippery slope.

As for Vuleta ethnic Croats from Croatia - you would have to trace back in anthropology literature migrations and look for links with specific branches but that is not something easily documented or welcome ( people even like to even invent a lot just to prove that same surnames found in different ethnic groups are not related at all.) My advice would be to look for relatives among Vuleta ethnic Serbs only from anywhere from former Yugoslavia.

From public records, there was some migrating of Vuletas from Bosnia ( Serbs) to Croatia after WWI and that is the only branch I can confirm is related to your ancestors, but these are identified as Serbs from Croatia.

Try looking for Vuleta people from Serbia proper - Serbian refugees from Bosnia and Croatia after the most recent conflicts mostly settled there, and there was a branch from Dolac who already resided in Belgrade prior to 1941.

If you have any photographs of your ancestors send them to my email and we can post them on our fb page for more visibility and forward your search locally.

I will post fotos tonight. Do you have the names of any of those that went to Belgrad or Croatia ? Also there are a lot of Vuletas that ended up in Austria. Would those be related?

Also.... Some went to Australia??????

For those in Austria and Australia if they are from Bosnia - these would be more recent migrations, probably in the 90s and are worth giving it a shot, some may be from Dolac families.

Your first try should be heritage associations of Serbs like this one :

https://www.facebook.com/zavicajnoudruzenje.glamoc