SuryanFamily.com is just beginning. Currently, you can find family tree information for the last name Suryan or Surjan, whose roots can be traced to the town of Vela Luka on the island of Korcula in the republic of Croatia. Eventually, we plan to add photos and family stories. It is also our hope that cousins can reconnect with each other using our living family tree. Living Suryans from our tree can be found in the following countries:

Australia Brazil Chile Croatia (Hrvatska) Italy United Kingdom United States Venezuela

One thing that you will find out from SuryanFamily.com is that there are a lot more Suryans out there than you might think. In fact, there were (are) so many of them in Vela Luka, that various branches were given family nick names. My great-great grandfather was nicknamed "Trofo", while my grandfather was "Mušulin". If you have ancestors that are from Croatia, there are several facts to be aware of as you try and trace your family history. The Catholic Church was very good at keeping family records. Most of the information displayed on this site came from church records.

All Croatian names have English counterparts. For example, Donko is Dominick, Joze is Joseph, Marija is Maria, Ivan is John and so on. In Croatian, the "j" is pronounced as a "y", hence the spelling of Surjan. In addition, instead of combining consonants, Croatian places caps on letters, so for example š makes the English sound "sh". If you have an American last name ending in "ch", remove the "h" to find the Croatian equivalent. For more on the Croatian language, visit http://skeravec.chez.tiscali.fr/Pronounc.html.

In addition to Suryan, some of the other Croatian family names that you will find on our tree include Barcott, Dragovich, Franulovich, Gugich, Oreb, Prizmich, Viscovich, Zitkovich, and Zuvela. English last names include Bently, Cedar, Demski, Leighton, Houghton, Stack and Wohlhueter.

Want to learn more about Vela Luka? www.apartments-vela-luka.com is a great place to start.

Here are links to Suryan/Surjan's on the Internet:


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