Every claim on this site rests on a record. These are the twelve primary documents currently in hand, each listed with where it lives and what it proves. Where a document contains a living or recent person’s sensitive data, that detail is redacted, type, date, source, and findings remain.
Proves: the entire family’s voyage, Bremen (July 11) to Galveston (Aug 6, 1907). Records race “Bosnian,” last residence “Bosnia, Prijedor,” brother Mihal in Prijedor as nearest relative, and the Gregurek & Mungiza families traveling with them. The keystone record.
Proves: mother Mary Gavranović’s birthplace as “Prijedor, Bosnia, Austria”, the document that first located the family in Prijedor, before the manifest was found.
Proves: Ivan’s own signature with the South-Slavic diacritic; self-identified citizenship “Czecho-Slovak” (six weeks before that country existed); status “Declarant”; farmer; medium build, brown eyes, black hair.
Proves: “coming here from abroad, Bosnia, in Jugo-Slavia”; that he lived in Frydek 1907–1931; and names Chas. Gavranović of Hungerford, a previously unknown relative.
Proves: immigration year 1907, naturalization status “Pa 1918,” and the mother tongue of the entire household, Bohemian (Czech). The cornerstone of the Czech-identity evidence.
Proves: a Czech-language inscription, “Zde odpočívá Ivan Gavranović, nar. 26 února 1875, zem. 8 července 1934”, with an oval ceramic portrait. Fixes his birth and death dates.
Proves: her name “Františka Gavranović,” birth 23 June 1871 and death 10 December 1929, in a matching Czech inscription with her own ceramic portrait.
Proves: Thomas’s birthplace recorded as “Bosnie, Czechoslovakia”, the Bosnian and Czech identities captured together in a single official phrase.
Proves: father Ivan Gavranovic and mother’s maiden name Francis Sojak; informant brother Joe P. Gavranovic. (SSN on the record is redacted here.)
Proves: Mary (b. Sept 14, 1900) as a daughter of Ivan and Frances; documents her death in an automobile accident near Richmond, Texas.
Proves: Ken’s grandfather’s birth; father Thomas J. (b. Austria), mother Lillie Klecka, and Frantiska herself listed as the attending midwife, of San Felipe.
Proves: Joe’s birth (Oct 28, 1914, Sealy) and parents Ivan Gavranovic and Frances Sojak. (The number itself is redacted here.)
A photo, a certificate, a letter, a parish record from Bosnia, any primary source helps. Share it and we’ll add it to the family archive (with your name credited, if you like).
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