Friends of Konavle Heritage
friendsofkonavle@gmail.com

There is a Skuce family in California with many branches. They are descended from Đuro Skvrce and his wife Marija Sablić who emigrated from Pločice, Konavle, around 1910 and changed their surname to Skuce. When I was a boy, there was a Nick Skuce, my mother’s second cousin, who occasionally visited my family near Fresno, CA. I learned this history of the Skvrce/Skuce family, as described above, from my mother.   In 1999, when I first visited Croatia to find genealogical infor

Donna F. Mekis and Kathryn Mekis Miller Authors of Blossoms Into Gold: The Croatians in the Pajaro Valley We spent six years conducting research on the history of the Croatians in the Pajaro Valley for our book, Blossoms Into Gold: The Croatians in the Pajaro Valley . Throughout those years several important themes emerged, and we would like to share them with you.   When people migrate from one country to another, their unique traditions, perspectives, and ways of life accom

Here is an interesting exercise that will show you what Konavle looked like in 1837. In 1837, the Austrian government sent out teams of surveyors to map the property in what is today Croatia. The purpose was for tax assessment. Five or six copies of these maps were made, and today they can be found in several Croatian archives but, interestingly, not in the Dubrovnik archive. The copy shown below was probably from the main Croatian archive in Zagreb. To see these maps, go to

In 1994, Croatian money was switched from dinar to kuna. It changed to the euro (€) on 1 Jan. 2023. In the Croatian language, a kuna is a marten (related to the weasel and mink). In ancient times, kuna pelts were export items from many regions of what is today Croatia. Around 1000 AD, the towns of Cres and Beli (on the island of Cres) had to pay an annual tribute in kuna pelts to the Venetian authorities. This was the first known instance of kuna pelts being used directl

The Pajaro Valley of central, coastal California is famous for its fruits and vegetables. The main town in the valley is Watsonville with a population of around 50,000. The first railroad in the Pajaro Valley went through in 1873, and fruit brokers followed the railroads. They bought fruit and vegetables in bulk and shipped them to the larger cities like San Jose, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Later, they were shipped all over the world. The first big fruit brokers in Watson