Rakar

Alojzija Rakar (my grandmother) died a few years after my father's birth, so researching the Rakar family presented the most challenges. I obtained some information from pictures and notes from my father's aunt Antonija Rakar, and also some from my father's sister Pepca and cousin Štefka.

Despite the lack of information, within a few months, I managed to build a rather nice ancestral tree:

But the path to get here was anything but easy...

A Bad Start...

It stopped already at Antonija's grandfather Ivan Rakar: I could not find his birth in any of the Podzemelj parish books; the birth year 1874 was only evident from the monument and marriage certificate. However, I did find the birth certificate of Ana Rakar, b.1885 in Klošter (who could have been his sister) and the marriage of Katarina Rakar, widow, to Jurij Koplan.

It dawned on me then that my aunt had mentioned that we were also related to the Koplans, but she didn't know how. Unfortunately, searching for Katarina's first marriage to a Rakar in the parish books of Podzemelj on Matricula Online also yielded no results.

Toplice

At this point, I decided it would be necessary to check the Status Animarum (census of souls) of the Podzemelj parish in the Archdiocesan Archive of Ljubljana. There, at the address Klošter 52 (the address of the widow Katarina Rakar at her second marriage), I found an interesting entry:

Katarina Simonič married in (Dolenjske) Toplice! And she was born on October 13, 1885 - interestingly, just like Katarina buried in Koplan's grave - which is one spot away from Renko's grave (grandmother Alojzija Rakar, married Renko), and that one next to Rakar's grave (Alojzija's father Ivan). Coincidence? I would say no!

On the adjacent page in the SA, there was also a pencil entry for the following family (unfortunately without birth years):

Here it becomes obvious that Katarina Simonič was married to Janez Rakar and that they had three children: Janez/Ivan (him I was looking for!), Zorica, and Ana (whose birth certificate I had already found). Here, things also started to align with previous information from my aunt that two of their great-aunts had emigrated to America - could these be Zorica and Ana?

The next step was researching the parish of Toplice (Dolenjske Toplice).

Podhosta

The SA books for Toplice were not yet digitized at that time, so I got my hands on the original book in the archive. Since I didn't know where to look, I simply went from beginning to end, searching the pages for the surname Rakar or Simonič. And at Podhosta (Untergehak) 23, I found:

Next to the family of Anton Rakar, Janez Rakar and Katarina Simonič were added in pencil! Among Anton's children, there was also son Janez, born October 25, 1835, who apparently married Katarina and lived with her here for at least some time, temporarily (hence the pencil entry?). Next to his name, it is noted that in 1877 he married in (at least that's how I read it) Karlstadt (Karlovac)?

In the SA at Podhosta 6, I quickly found mother Jera Rakar, who, besides Anton, had two more sons and two daughters - all listed without a father.

Karlovac

Since I still had neither the marriage of Janez Rakar and Katarina Simonič nor the births of Ivan and Zorica, I went to search the books for Karlovac.

First, in the parish of Dubovac (Karlovac), I found the marriage of sister Marija Rakar (sister of Ivan), a servant, to innkeeper Mirko Banović from Karlovac 100:

I presume that Janez went, at least initially, to Karlovac to his sister Marija. As I searched further, I came across Zora Rakar, born February 16, 1878, daughter of Ivan Rakar and Kata Šimonić:

Of course, this is Zorica, and the parents are Janez Rakar and Katarina Simonič, still unmarried here (as noted in the margin). I found the marriage in the next step: they married on May 5, 1878:

However, it stopped at the birth of Ivan Rakar, which was supposed to be in 1874 (according to some sources, October 2). I cannot find him in the Dubovac parish, so it is possible that he was born in another parish.

American Emigrants

As I already mentioned, two of Ivan Rakar's sisters were supposed to have emigrated to the USA. First, the elder, Zora Rakar (renamed to Rose), emigrated to the USA. There are some migration documents for her, but I haven't found information about her first arrival, which was presumably in 1890.

Later, the younger, 16-year-old, Ana Rakar traveled to her sister. There is an immigration document from 1901 for her, from which it is evident (8th line) that she went to Martin Sodec (her sister's husband).

In America, I found many descendants of Rose (Zora) Sodetz, as well as some descendants of Ana Okorn.

Further Research

1. Jera Rakar:
   • birth date and place
     • for now, I am not sure if I have the correct entry from the birth register January 27, 1788
     • at her death July 10, 1848, she was supposedly 65 years old (which would place her birth year in 1783)
   • she had 4 illegitimate children (bearing the Rakar surname), one child with Franc Hirsch and one with Andrej Kravanja - but there is no indication that either of them could be the father of the illegitimate children
2. Elizabeta Mervar:

• she was supposedly from Lipovice, but I haven't found her either in Lipovec near Semič, or anywhere else