Pakledinaz joins the family as my maternal great grandfather, John Pakledinaz. John is one of our immigrant ancestors and it seems that he hails from the town of Tompojevci, which is located in Croatia now, where he was born 16 March 1885. He emigrated from there back in August of 1905 on board the SS Kaiser Wilhelm. He said he was joining his cousin, Jakob Pakledinaz, in Youngstown, Ohio. Youngstown is where he met and married my great grandmother, Anna Hinterhauser in 1910. They moved to the Detroit area sometime between 1912 and 1914 where they would live out their life.
Not much is known of the Pakledinaz family prior to John. I was able to get a record of a baptism from the church records near Tompojevci, which I am pretty sure belongs to our John. And this gives me his parents names: Markus Pakledinac and Elizabetha Prankovic. He has the cousin, mentioned earlier and he also had a brother, Joseph (Josip). Joseph changed their name to Parker sometime between 1910 and 1920 and in 1920 they lived in Ohio, this is where I lost most of the family. I know that their daughter, Cecelia Mathis moved to Detroit at some point. I know this because in 1957 she was assaulted on Wayburn street in Detroit. She died a couple of days later from the wounds received in the assault - her assailants got away with a whole $2.
There is one burning question and story within this family. One of John's daughters had heard that the family, back in Croatia, owned vineyards. Joe, John's brother, was supposed to be taking care of those. However, the story goes that Joe sold all the vineyards and kept the money, which caused, understandably, some rift within the family.
We may never know if this story is true or anything further of the Pakledinaz family as that part of Croatia was ravaged by the wars in the Balkans. From what I have been told of the records for the area, most were destroyed during the war. I have some information on other Pakledinac's from the same are in Croatia but just do not know how they fit in. I am lucky to have the birth and baptism records I found and if this is all I can get, then I am happy. However, it will not stop me from searching and maybe we can uncover clues which will lead to more discoveries of this family.
What direct family line has given you the most trouble? What did you do to help breakdown those foreign brick walls?
Thanks for reading and keep diggin’ for that family.
Chris
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