Dear Ms. Hunter—
I was recently researching the surname Jakovac (my maiden name) and ran across your post from nine years ago. You may or may not still be trying to trace your son-in-law’s Jakovac roots, but if you are, I can volunteer a bit of additional information.
Tomas Jakovac was my grandfather. I know that he was one of eight children who were born and raised in the village of Tusti Vhr (“Fat Hill”) in the Gorski Kotar mountain range of what is now Croatia. Tomas and his three elder siblings immigrated separately to the United States in the early 20th century, starting with Vincent, the eldest. Each of them worked in turn to send money back to what my grandfather always called “the old country” for the next younger one to follow. World War I intervened before the four youngest could immigrate.
Thanks to the research of one of my first cousins, I was able to make contact with Vladimir Jakovac, the grandson of one of the four siblings who remained. Vlado is a retired businessman, formerly head of sales and marketing for a publicly traded company in Slovenia, and in 2012 he and his dear wife Slavica invited our family to visit them at their lovely home in Rijeka, Croatia, at the head of the Adriatic. While we were there Vlado and Slavica took us to Tusti Vhr, a tiny village consisting of no more than a half a dozen homes (most of them still owned by members of our extended family), where we were able to go inside the three-room cottage where our great-grand parents raised their eight children. Thanks to Vlado, we also met numerous cousins while we were in Croatia and were astounded by the family resemblance.
Unfortunately, Vlado did not know a great deal more about our family’s roots before our greatgrandparents settled in Tusti Vhr, and I have not been able to learn more myself. If you have further information, I would love to hear it, and I will be happy to share contact information with my cousin Vlado, assuming of course, he agrees.
Sincerely,
Gloria Cheatham
Atlanta