Žubrinić

Where they are from

Otočac — a Military Frontier regimental town — in the Gacka valley in Lika — an old Frontier garrison town inland from Senj, across the Velebit. Tereza Žubrinić (1867–1931), Hedviga's grandmother, is born there, as are her father Nicolaus (1834) and grandfather Michael (1811). Above them the tree reaches Toma Žubrinić, born 1768 at Šumećica 2.

Three alphabets, one name — and here is the proof

The family is written Xubrinich in the Venetian-Italian convention where X spelled the sound Ž; Zubrinich in the German-Latin administrative hand; and Žubrinić in modern Croatian after Gaj's reform. That was an argument until the Otočac register was read. In the baptismal entry of 24 January 1834 the priest writes the father's name and underlines it: Michaël XUBRINICH. How to search it →

They were Frontier soldiers

The same entry, kept in Latin, gives the household's conditio in one word: Confiniarius — a man of the Military Frontier, the militarised border the Habsburgs ran against the Ottomans, in which every household owed service. It places them ex Pago Shumechia N° 24 — the village of Šumećica, house 24, outside Otočac, itself a Frontier regimental seat.

The godparents say it twice over. The godfather is Petrus, son of Francis Xubrinich, entered as Vigiliarum Ma[gister] — master of the watch — and pensioned. The godmother is Maria, wife of Joannes Xubrinich, Silvarum Custos — forest warden at Šumećica. Three Žubrinić households in one entry, each holding an office.

This is a different social world from the Blaževići, who are day labourers, or the Papići, who carry sacks. Nothing in the family tree records it.

A note on the page itself

The 1834 leaf is torn and has been conservation-mounted; the scan carries the archive's own label, Repaired Document / Restaurirani dokument. Whole columns of neighbouring entries are lost to the tear. That this line survives legibly is luck.

The Australians

About 1884 Ivan Žubrinić (1860–1930) reached Port Pirie, South Australia, and from his first child in 1885 the family is registered as Zubrinich — through Broken Hill, Whyalla and Quorn to this day. His father was a Forest Ranger at Otočac and his grandparents both died in 1845. The Frontier → · Port Pirie →

422 records, 90 loose ends

The Žubrinić material here is not one family: 422 records resolving into 90 loose ends, and 92 people held together by nothing but an A–Z index — eighteen nodes whose entire given name is a single letter. Elsewhere they hang off nodes whose names are researchers' notes — one reads “Brothers of Casparus (It Seems) Žubrinić”. Our line and the Australian line are not joined by anything, though their earliest men are born a year apart in the same district. The honest state of it →

Where they were born

• 96 Otočac, Croatia
• 15 Otocac Croatia
• 14 Port Pirie, South Australia, Australia
• 8 Prozor 50
• 6 Otočac, Općina Otočac, Lika-Senj County, Croatia
• 2 Port Pirie, South Australia
• 2 Senj, Croatia
• 1 Port Germein, South Australia, Australia

How the tree spells it

• Žubrinić × 201
• Žubrinić / Xubrinich × 118
• Žubrinić / Xubrinich / Zubrinic × 26
• Žubrinić / Zubrinic / Xubrinich × 20
• Zubrinich × 15
• Žubrinić / Zubrinic × 14
• ŽUBRINIĆ × 3
• Žubrinić (Xubrinic) × 3
• Xubrinich × 2
• ZUBRINICH × 2
• Zubrinic × 2
• Žubrinić / Xubrinić × 2

Everyone of the name