Often while doing family research in volatile region of Europe commonly refered to as Yugoslavia or the Balkans you have to determine a few things before you will be able to obtain accurate and reliable information. In order to locate information it becomes necessary to determine what ethnic group your ancestor belonged too. This might become challenging for people who's family refered to themselves as Yugoslavs.

1) Determine ethnic background

A: First and last name
i. Often a first last name will indicate or give a hint to an ethnic background

B: Religion
i. Were your ancestors, Catholic, Muslim or Orthodox(did they celebrate Easter 2 weeks later than on the Christian calendar.

C: Places
i. Did they indicate names of cities or village, or regions.
examples of city names: Belgrade, Ljubljana, Novi Sad, Podgorica, Pristina, Skopje, Zagreb
examples of regions which are now countries: Bosnia Hercegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia


D: Ethnic Groups
i. examples of ethnic groups from the former Yugoslavia would be: Albanian, Croatian(Hrvat),German(Svabin or Njemac), Hungarian(Madjar), Macedonian(Makedonac),Monte Negran(Crna Gorac), Moslem(Muslim),Romanian(Rumun), Serbian(Srb), Slovak, Slovene(Slovenac)

If you can keep those things in mind your research will be more successful. You have to remember since 1991 Yugoslavia broke apart into seperate countries which could lead you way off base if you are searching for a relative who was Slovenian and you are trying to research records in the New Yugoslavia.

Good luck and happy research.