Trying to track down your roots? Learn all about ancestry tours in Slovenia, Croatia or other Balkan countries and visit the birthplace of your grandparents.
As a local travel agency we are specialized in preparing tailor-made trips to Slovenia, Croatia and other Balkan countries. In the past years we have welcomed numerous guests from all over the world. When asked how come they choose the Balkans for their holidays, many of them stated that their grandparents emigrated from here and they wanted to see the land of their ancestors. Furthermore, they were eager to visit the villages where their relatives were born and talk to the locals about the life there.
Of course our guides were more than happy to make that happen. We included these spots in their personalized itineraries and took our clients there. Their guide offered to translate any conversation they would have with the locals or even any remaining relatives. Our guests were extremely happy about this unique experience and claimed it was the highlight of their trip to the Balkans.
for more info on ancestry tours
SPICE UP YOUR TRIP TO THE BALKANS
Learning how easy it is to make trips to Slovenia or Croatia even more special to our clients, we have decided to promote ancestry tours as part of our regular offer. We took it even further and in some cases tracked down their remaining relatives by ourselves or looked up records about their family in the old archive books.
You too can add root searching to your regular visit of the Balkans. When making a booking with our agents, let us know your ancestor emigrated from these lands and give us all the details you might have. We will contact the professional team who specializes in digging up these things and will surely track down something fascinating about your past. Sometimes just your last name and name of the village is enough to locate the old homestead your roots are connected to.
ANCESTRY TOURS
➨ Visit the village your grandfather was born in
➨ Meet any living relatives
➨ Talk to the locals about way of life in the past
➨ Search the church history books
Track down your family roots on our ancestry tours
WHERE DID SLOVENES EMIGRATE TO?
Although Slovenia is a tiny country with a current population of just two million people, there are many more of us living in almost every other country on Earth. Nowadays, most Slovenians are perusing their adventures spirit and can be found exploring all continents of the world, but in the past migrations were mostly connected with bad economic situation at home.
Relatively big Slovene communities live in the United States (between 160 and 180 thousand), Canada (over 40 thousand) and Australia (over 15 thousand). There are even significant communities of Slovenian descenders in South America, mostly in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela.
EMMIGRATIONS FROM SLOVENIA TO USA
Large numbers of Slovenes emigrated to United States between 1880 and World War I. It is basically impossible to determine their exact number, because in the customs procedures Slovenes were often classified as Austrians, Italians, Croats, or simply as Slavic. The largest groups of Slovenes in the United States settled Cleveland and Chicago, where their descendants still preserve Slovenian culture within local organizations and church communities.
The later migrations waves from Slovenia to the US occurred immediately after WWI and WWII. They mostly settled in the industrial cities or to mining towns in southwestern Pennsylvania, southeastern Ohio and the state of West Virginia to work in the coal mines and lumber industry. Some of them went to Pittsburgh or Youngstown, Ohio to work in steel mills; Minnesota’s Iron Range, to work in the iron mines and also to Copper Country on the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan for copper mining. Many also went west to Rock Springs in Wyoming to work in the coal mines that supported the Union Pacific Railway.
Among some of the most famous American’s of Slovenian descent are senator Amy Klobuchar, actors David Boreanaz and Željko Ivanek, military general Frank Gorenc and astronaut Sunita Williams. Slovenians are still immigration to US. The most well known examples are basketball players Luka Doncic and Goran Dragic, hockey player Anze Kopitar and of course Melania Trump.
SLOVENE AUSTRALIANS
Slovenes started to emigrate to the Land Down Under in the middle of the 19th century, but the largest waves came after each world war. It is hard to operate with exact number, since most of the post-WWI immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire where simply classified as Austrians, regardless of their true descent. However, in the 2006 census, a total of 16,093 Australians declared that they were of Slovenian origin. Most of them are from the state of New South Wales, but also from Tasmania.
SLOVENE CANADIANS
Canada is another one on the list of the promise lands that Slovenes were immigrating to in large numbers. A lot of the worked in the mines in Yukon or cut timber in British Columbia. Nowadays, more than half of their descenders can be found in the province of Ontario (over 25 thousand) where they try to preserve Slovenian heritage by issuing a community paper and hosting a weekly radio show. Other larger groups are in Vancouver, Alberta and Quebec.
Are you a descended of Slovene immigrants to US, Canada, Australia or any other country? Would you like to visit the homeland of your ancestors and track your family roots?
to organize your ancestry tour
Follow the footsteps of your ancestors
CROATIAN DIASPORA
It is suggested there are about 8 million Croats living on Earth, but half of them outside their beautiful motherland of Croatia. About 1,5 million Croatians and their descendants live overseas, with the largest communities found in the United States and Canada, South America, Australia and even New Zealand. Some of them caught gold fever or simply felt adventures, while most of the emigrants left their home in the aftermath of WWII, due to political, social and economic instability.
CROATIAN LATIONS
Around 700 thousand Croatians nowadays live in South America. Their forefathers started to arrive in the 19th century, following the Tierra del Fuego gold rush. Today, the largest communities of Croatians can be found in Chile (380 thousand) and Argentina (250 thousand), where they represent one of the best examples of successful assimilation of a non Spanish-speaking European ethnic group on the continent. Other minorities can be found in Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and Bolivia. If you are one of Croats living in Latin America we invite you to visit our travelling site in Spanish language.
CROATAS IN NORTH AMERICA
United States is a country with the largest Croatian diaspora, counting over 400 thousand, although some estimated numbers are much higher. The first ones started to arrive as early as 1715 and settled in Georgia where they started a silk-worm cultivation. Over the next centuries the influx was steady and today we can find significant Croatian American communities in metropolitan areas of Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Southern California and especially Pittsburgh. Their descents, who do not speak any Croatian, often contact us for information on ancestry tours which we are happy to provide. The same goes for Croatian Canadians who populated Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and other metropolitan areas.
AUSSIES AND KIWIS
After Austro-Hungarian Empire lower the taxes on Italian wines and oil, many of the Dalmatian famers went bankrupt and moved to New Zealand where their grandchildren still cultivate vines in mostly northern regions. Others followed after the conflicts of WWI, WWII and Yugoslav war. Today up to 100 thousands Kiwis claim to have Croatian blood in them. Meanwhile across the ditch, the population is slightly larger (130 thousand) and originates in the 19th-century gold rush immigrations.
If you are one of the millions of people across the globe who identify themselves as Croats, but have never actually visited Croatia and would like to, contact our friendly agents at ➨ info@ekorna.net. We can organize great ancestry tours to any Balkan country. Lear how your ancestors used to live in these lands and what made them emigrate overseas. Take an interesting cultural tour with your private driver guide or simply relax on a small ship cruise in the Adriatic. That too can be a great way of finding yourself.
for more info on ancestry tours in the Balkans
