We are a small family business that can find your relatives in the former Yugoslavia.
Do you have ancestors from the former Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia? Would you like to know more about your family history?
Have you already begun researching your family history? Have you reached a brick wall in your genealogy research?
If you answered positively to these questions, you’re in the right place. We want to help you with your family research. You may have much information concerning your heritage or family tree, although certain links must be clarified. We can help sort through all the data and “connect the dots” for you.
We research civil and church records, call potential relatives, search family history books, obtain family trees and pictures, and investigate details culturally, historically, and factually.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Butte Montana had about 100 000 citizens. Among them, about 5000 Montenegrins, as well as thousands of Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians. A survey of Mountain View Cemetery will reveal Butte’s rich historical, ethnic past. Scripts on headstones are often written in the deceased’s native language (Serbo Croatian Latin and Cyrillic)
It was three years ago I started my quest to find my relatives and history in Montenegro.
I only new of one famous great uncle named Spiro Sargentich who came from Budva.
I did some personal exploring and found some basic information about my family, but I
needed much more to satisfy my needs. Trying to contact foreign historical agencies,
churches, and records was just to difficult by the internet.
In October of 2013 I contacted Ljiljana in Montenegro to help me with the search. She
was very willing and able to help in any way. She spent extensive time and effort
searching under very difficult circumstances. She was able to get into the Montenegro
archives, traveled to Budva, Kotor, Petrovac and other places to gather my family information.
She took several photos, and send me loads of documents.
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Over the last year she has continually found new information, documents and records.
She has enhanced my family tree and traced relatives back some 2 hundred years.
I was very pleased and happy to learn all the things she found. As a result, my wife and
I took a vacation to Montenegro in October of 2014. We met Ljiljana and she helped us
plan our trips to family land and sites. She helped as an interpreter when I met my
relatives from Belgrade, and set up meetings for me with historians who had a family
information.
Overall, Ljiljana was a huge part of bringing my family together and seeing the
Homeland. I appreciate all her hard work and we still communicate today.
It has been a pleasure to work with her.
in America, once my Grandparents passed away. I felt that I reconnected with my Roots and this was all done by Ljiljana and Russell. They are a great team. Russell born in America and now living for some time in Montenegro; helps to explain the country and the way people think there. Ljiljana, being born in Montenegro, gives you the true flavor of what is all around you; once you step off the plane on to Montenegro soil. If Russell can’t answer the question, Ljiljana can.
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Like I say, they make a great team. Ljiljana and Russell did such a great job, that I rehired them the following year and brought my wife, son and daughter with me on my next trip. They took care of all the details again and drove us around. It was great to be in their hands with no worries. Most important, they are both honest people and truly have your best interest at heart.
Russell ended up in Montenegro, searching out his own Roots, so he knows first hand, just what you want to see on your visit. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, that is what they are there for. They actually, bent backwards for us. You can tell that they love what they are doing. It is not a job for them, but an adventure! ”
“Ljiljana has been a great help in my search for my husband’s ancestors. She has made calls, written letters, and has done research in order to assist me. It is very difficult, if not impossible, for someone from the United States to access information about one’s ancestors in Bosnia-Herzegovina. My goal was to find any living descendants in Bosnia-Herzegovina and/or surrounding areas who may have ties to my husband’s great grandfather and grandmother, Ilia and Stana Ćeran. Ljiljana was not afraid to pick up the telephone and call living Ćeran families.
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She wrote letters to the Archives and several municipalities, as well as to the Orthodox Church.She has translated correspondence for me and has explained customs and historical facts to me. We have come up with several promising leads and she wants to continue to communicate with me if something pops up. What I think is unique about Ljiljana’s work is that we worked together as a team.We were in constant contact via email and if I had a comment, question, or needed a translation, she would respond immediately. Thank you for your service, Ljiljana!” Janice Cannon, California USA
Dear Sir Ljiljana Tripovich asked me to contact you in regards to the work she has done for me.I am thrilled with the research performed by Ljiljana. Here’s a little background.My maternal grandfather was born in Hercegovina in the 1890s.He left Herzegovina in 1908 at about the age of 16 to escort his sister to America, never to return to his homeland.He didn’t talk about his family or life in the old country very much.My mother told me he used to write to his brothers back there, but I didn’t have any names or details.
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Since 2009, I have been gathering as much information as I could through interviews of my mother and aunts and by searching on Ancestry.com.I also had a few unidentified photos, and a letter from 1935 addressed to my grandfather, written in Serbian.I had the letter translated and discovered it was from my grandfather’s brother informing him of another brother’s untimely death.
From all of this, I had some possible names of some siblings, but nothing solid. In March 2010, I posted a request on an Ancestry.com message board with the little information I had, asking for help.The only response I received was over 3 years later from Ljiljana stating she had done some research and knew someone who had made a family tree.
When my DNA cousin Laura told me about Lily I hired her to find my mother’s mother’s family living near Gacko, Herzegovina. My grandmother Plema came over as a 17-year-old lady in 1904 and married and settled in Chicago. She died young from TB, so my mother didn’t know much about her mom’s origins. So, lily found my 2 cousins there in 4 days! I now communicate with them by e-mails. I am so very happy I found the missing family history. Thank you ever so much, Lily. Corinne Stefanko, Honomu, Hawaii
Email: lily@yugoslavroots.com