An immigrant son, Robert Kunstel, Jr. and his wife Elsie Vieth in Saint Louis, circa 1920.
Ruled by Rome from the 1st century BC, the region was settled by the South Slavs (6th century AD) and passed to the Franks (788), the dukes of Bavaria (843), and the Hapsburgs (1335), becoming part of Austria.
The region, also called Krain, or Carniola, was a duchy and crownland in the Austrian Empire, bounded on the north by Karinthia, on the north-east by Styria, on the south-east and south by Croatia, and on the west by Trieste, Goritza, and Istria. The Julian and Karavanken Alps traverse the country.
Fearing cultural destruction from an Austro-Hungarian empire, Slovenia joined the Slavic union of Yugoslavia in 1918. In 1991 the republic proclaimed its independence after Serbia refused to agree to a looser Yugoslav confederation.
With a diversity of landforms, snow covered Alpine mountains, gorgeous river valleys, and fertile vineyards and farms, Slovenia boasts an attractive geography.
The map above shows the region where the Robert Kunstel and Mary Gregovich's family resided East of Trieste and Postojna, in Sodrazica. Mary (1875-1925) joined her husband Robert Kunstel, Sr. in St. Louis, Missouri, with their two young children sometime between 1901 and 1903.
Other points of emigration for the Kunstel family include Vrhnika, Slovenia, located near the top of the map where the ancestors of Frank Kunstel (1915-1990) resided before moving to Cleveland, Ohio. Frank's father, Ciril Kunstelj arrived at Ellis Island single and 21 years old in February, 1909.
This page is maintained by scubadog.geo. Please email me if you have additonal info or would like more details concerning Kunstel and Kunstelj family history in the United States and Europe.