Pakledinac (Pakledinaz) Family of Tompojevci

For the past month or so, I have been making my way through church records from the Sotin parish located in what is now Croatia but at the time of these records it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. My ancestors are from the nearby village of Tompojevci. Sotin is where the main parish was so that is where I look for church records. My goal for this was to confirm my great grandfather’s birth and parents and look for other family in the village. The records are extensive, covering birth, marriage, and deaths from 1795 – 1895, so I have many records to go through; you can read what I have already written about these records here; Old Country Church Records.

I would like to say that I am through with the records but I am not, I have only made it through the baptisms for years 1857 – 1895 with minor browsing through all the other years. However, I wanted to share what I have uncovered so far.

As I mentioned, the goal was to look for family of my great grandfather, John Pakledinaz. What I have to report about his mother, father, and siblings is not great happy news. I am happy to find his family and put more of my history together, but I cannot imagine what his parents and the rest of the family had to go through during this time.

John’s parents are Marcus and Elisabetha (Bankovic) Pakledinaz. They had 10 children that I can find in the records, only 4 of those would live past their 1^st year of life, and one other would die at age 15. It is not uncommon to have children die within months of birth in this era, I have run into it with other families I am researching but I have not had a family that lost this many children so early in life. I cannot and will not even try to imagine losing one of my children. I cannot begin to feel how devastating this must have been for Marcus and Elisabetha, my 2^nd great grandparents. Here is a list of their children:

1. Marianus – born (listed as their first-born) 10 October 1866, died 13 October 1866, just 3 days old.

2. Joannes – born 2 December 1867, died 22 August 1883, just 15 years old.

3. Adamus – born 24 March 1870, died 29 Aug 1871, just 1 year old.

4. Elias – born 20 July 1874, died 19 Dec 1874, just 5 months old.

5. Magdalena – born 24 October 1875, died 4 December 1875, just a month old.

6. Barbara – 26 December 1876, died on ??. I hope to find some more about her.

7. Josip – 19 March 1879, died on ??. He immigrated to the US in 1906 and sometime before 1920 changed his name from Pakledinaz to Parker. In 1930, he was in Michigan with his family – I lose track of him after that.

8. Matija – born 19 February 1881, died 11 August 1881, just 5 months old.

9. Gjuragj – born 10 May 1883, died 24 February 1885, just 1 year old.

10. Ivan (John, my great grandfather) – born 16 March 1885, died 13 March 1957 in Detroit, Michigan. I’ve written about him in these previous posts: Birth Record, Draft Registration Cards, Immigration Ship Manifest, Surname Saturday - Pakledinac (I am going to have to update my Pakledinac page soon with the new information I am finding).

As I continue through these records, I will make additional posts on my findings of our Pakledinaz (Pakledinac) and Bankovic ancestors. My goal is to be through them by the end of September.

The citation for these records are: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, "Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994," database and images, Family Search (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2040054 : accessed 17 Aug 2014); Roman Catholic (Rimokatoli?ka crkva) > Sotin > Births (Ro?eni),Marriages (Vjen?ani), Deaths (Umrli) 1857-1885

Thanks for reading and keep diggin’ for that family.

Chris

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