Genealogy research of families from Dugi otok

In this blog I will give results of my genealogy research of families from Dugi otok and this for period from the end of 16th till the middle of the 19th century. I began this research by researching family three of Masnov family from Brbinj that my late grandmother belong to. My first plan was to research records from Brbinj parish that were written in latin script, so that meant researching records written from 1825. onwards and onla records connected with Masnov family. That part I finished quickley, but then I realized that story about real history of Masnov family from Brbinj is hiding in old records from Brbinj parish that were written in glagolitic script from start of 17th till the end of the 18th century.

After I learned how to read cursive glagolitic script in which are written old records of birth, death and marriage from Brbinj parish, I came to clues about the real origin of Masnov family, and also of origin of surnames of people who lived in Brbinj over 350 years ago. Only a part of these surnames exists today in Brbinj while most part of surnames are entirely forggoten. Besides glagolitic records of death, birth and marriages Brbinj parish has status animarum (list of souls) in which vicar would every year before Easter do list of adoult members of parish Brbinj. After transliteration of these lists of souls from glagolitic script to latin script I concluded that most of Brbinj families had two or in some cases more surnames which they used, or by which others, mostly priests, called them. One surname prevailed in official use, and others usually were forggoten.

Second conclusion that derived from this research was that almoust all families from Brbinj, in that period, through the male lineage were atleast once extinct (lot of them more then once), after which often in those families comes a man from other family, marries female member of the family on which estate he comes and he takes the surname of that family. This phenomenon in Brbinj and other parts of Dalmatia is called "vlaštvo". Second, less common way of resolving this kind of situations was taking and raising adoptees ("mulci"), who also, in this period, usually took the surnames of the family in which they came.

Besides glagolitic and latin records of birth, death, and marriage of Brbinj parish I researched also documentation from Franciscan cadastral from 19th century, part for Brbinj, inclouding cadastral maps and also documentation from Archive of Catholic Archidiocese of Zadar.

Besides glagolitic and latin church books of Brbinj parish I translitered also glagolitic church books of Božava parish, which included, in certain periods, nearby villages Soline and Zverinac. I also translitered part of glagolitic church books of Dragove parish.

For my conclusions or assumptions about genealogy of old families from Dugi otok I will try to bring much of the evidence or indications which I discovered trought my research. This will depend partly of possibilities of form on which I am publishing.

Along the data about genealogies of Dugi otok families I will also wright about glagolitic script, the oldest slavic script in which all the oldest church books from Dugi otok parishes were written.