Tracing Descendants of the Croatian Nobles Sufflay of Otruševec in Slovenia

Abstract

The paper at hand stems from a fortunate turn of events. By an unusual coincidence, descendants of Filip Aleksander Noble of Šufflay from Otruševec (1794—1882) from the castle Brlog at Ozalj in Croatia were discovered. The Šufflay (Suffei, Schufle1) family arrived in Samobor in the period when the town castle was in the hands of a Styrian general, Ban of Croatia and Baron Christoph Ungnad. Around 1565, he brought five families, well-trained miners from the Swabian Wiirttemberg, whose descendants still live around the border town Samobor, including the Šufflays and the Dolthars (Dolthallers), both of whom were granted the Austrian noble title in 1675. The story begins around 1855 when Antonija, nče Fux/Fuchs, the daughter of a wealthy citizen from Metlika, owner ofthe Črnomelj castle Karl Fuchs, and the wife of Daniel Šufflay Senior from Bubnjarci (Croatia), relocated with her three young children to her mother in Metlika. Her mother was the widow of an Austrian-Hungarian colonel and headmaster of the military school in Palmanova Thaddius Wanka of Lenzenheim. Descendants of the lawyer Daniel Šufiaj (1850— 1906), the son of Antonia and grandson of Filip, can be traced on the female line up to the present day. Through his daughter Ema, his descendants were linked by marriage to some well-known Slovenes, such as the author and politician Ivan Pucelj, the cooperative worker, politician and author Miloš Štibler, the journalist Gregor Pucelj and the painter Kamila Volčanšek.