Lidija Sambunjak is a very good friend of mine. She is a great professional genealogist and owner of “Zlato drevo,” a firm that does genealogical research in Croatia and Slovenia. Since I wanted to introduce you to the Croatian genealogist, she was willing to answer several questions that explain her job and passion.
- Why did you decide to go become a genealogical entrepreneur?
When I started doing my genealogy, I was telling everyone what I found out, where I found it, how interesting it was, and how happy it made me. Very soon people started asking me if I would be willing to do their family tree as well. Of course, at first, I didn’t think of it seriously, but after some time I was able to see that everything in my life pointed to the path of professional genealogy.
- How did you start your entrepreneurial journey?
The person that pushed me in this direction was my husband. He believed in me and gave me the wings I needed to make the first flight. At first, I gave him hundreds of reasons and the things that can happen, that will happen, and that I was afraid of. But he never wavered, in the end, was able to convince me otherwise. I have never regretted the decision to listen to him and will be forever grateful for his leadership.
- Explain the process you went through while opening your business?
Opening the business in this whole process was probably the easiest thing of them all. In the country where I live, opening a personal small business is not hard and the government is quite helpful in lowering bureaucratic’ s and visits to governmental institutions. I also needed back up from genealogy-related institutions, since genealogy as a profession doesn’t exist in our education system. But after I spend thousands of hours in the archives and after people in charge saw my work, they were ready to back me up in my efforts.
- What are some things that work for you in your job?
The biggest reward in being a freelance genealogist is your working time frame. Except for the trips to the archive, where archives have set up working schedules, one has the whole control of working hours and can easily manage between personal family life and professional life.
- What was the best thing that happened to you in your job or because of it?
By far the best thing in my profession is connecting families. Being present when families of the same lineage meet each other after family relations were cut for hundreds of years is one of the sweetest experiences, I have had in my life. And I am grateful for every client that ever allowed me to serve them in this way.
- What challenges do you face in your job?
In our countries, the biggest challenge is working with priests. A lot of parishes still have vital church books kept at parish offices, instead of sending them to local State or Archbishop’s archives. So when a big genealogy project is to be done, the priests don’t have the time to spend babysitting someone in their offices. In these cases, working with priests and their schedules is a challenge that is sometimes even impossible to solve.
- What was the hardest lesson you learned as a genealogical entrepreneur?
I wish I could learn faster to say no to some cases. People that haven’t done genealogical or historical research before cannot know the scope of research work that is needed to find information. Because of this, they expect lots of results in a short research time frame, which in most cases is impossible to do since historical documentation needs to be researched page by page.
- If you could turn back the time, what would you do differently? Why?
I would start even earlier! I remember when I started doing my genealogy in my early twenties, people in the archives would ask me what will I be doing when I retire. And all I could ever think of was how sorry I am for not beginning ever sooner. That I wouldn’t have missed the opportunity to interview our oldest family members, or to visit places that were most important in their family history.
- What is your advice for the next generation of genealogical entrepreneurs?
Do not ignore information given by the elderly, for most of the time stories are correct, while dates are not. And be nice to people- a simple smile will open more doors than waiving your rights.
- Explain what makes you different from other genealogists? (What is your area of expertise?)
I specialized in research in Slovenia and Croatia, two of ex-Yugoslavian countries. We have quite a few excellent genealogists in our areas, but only a few of us cover both countries. I believe this is important, for emigrations between these two countries, especially along almost 700 kilometers long border were very common.
- What is your contact preference for clients?
I’ll be happy to reply to your email sent to lidija (@) sambunjak. com
Dear Mrs. Sambunjak,
We are John and Julie Luger, we live in America, and we are genealogists doing research for a customer whose ancestor immigrated
to America from Perusic in 1906. We have been looking on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’ microfilmed Croatian
Parish records online and have tried to locate baptism records for him, in that town-he would have been born in the late 1800’s, and we’ve also tried, on there, to find baptism records with his parent’s names on them, in that town, dating to the mid-1800’s, but have not been able to do so. The only parish records, in Perusic, that we can access, date from about 1710 to about 1860. Would you, by any chance, know why this is? If you might be able to tell us why this is, we’d be extremely thankful and so would our customer. Thank you so much for your time, assistance, and consideration in this matter. Sincerely, John and Julie Luger
Dear John and Julie Luger,
I have forwarded your question to Mrs. Sambunjak and she will send you a reply as soon as she is able.
From my experience, most of the records for Croatian family history research are mostly offline in various archives, archdiocese archives, and parish archives, or are misplaced or destroyed.
Some of the Perusic parish records are online at Croatian State Archive in Zadar website (Perušić 1868-1941)
Zvjezdana