How do I make sense of this? Was my great grandmother Croatian or Austrian?

Question

I've been told we were Yugoslavian and Croatian by different family members and now I have this record. I know a lot of changes were going on during that time period but I'm still a little confused.

Answer 1

From the link it would appear that the person is male and came from the Austria-Hungarian empire which included Croatia at that time. Much of today's world has different names than that of 100 years ago but the ethnic backgrounds are still the same.

Answer 2

Here is the link about the ship.

http://www.frenchlines.com/ship_en_263.p...

It is true, between 1867-1918 the "empire" of Austria-Hungary covered a large area and it did control a large part of former Yugoslavia. He could have come from former Yugoslavia, but it may not be.  During this time the Balkan people were very nationalistsic. All of Europe seem to be.  When someone said they were from a country or nation, that's where they were from.

I would suspect that your ancestor was indeed from  Austria. I think he would have more likely said that he was from Croatia if he was from there.

Answer 3

I would say that it means your Grandmother was Austrian by birth but then moved to Croatia. You can take it to mean that she was Austrian, or depending on when she was there and how long, you could consider yourself partly Croatian.