While most houses in Slovenia carry a household name, there are some houses which do not exist anymore and were deserted many years before anyone was aware of their existence. The household names for these houses is therefore lost as it was not documented anywhere either. In the case of some smaller settlements such as Ogulin, Drežnik and Kovačji Grad, household names were never widely adopted as there was no need to differentiate families from each other. In the case of Kovačji Grad, despite the fact that 4 of the 8 houses had people with the surname of Šutej, there is very limited repetition of surnames leading to the use of surnames as the “household name”.
Through the period of our studies, we have found four distinct houses which originally carried the Šutej surname in Kovačji Grad. This is the first of the four houses (in order of house address).
The oldest record we have found to date for a person from this house is for Peter Šutej b. 1770. He married Ana Ostronič b. 1779. Together, they had at least 4 children, including:
1A. Miha Šutej b. 1799, m. ca. 1845 to Marija Pavlešič (Pavlešičeva from Perudina) — they remained at this house.
1B. Helena Šutej b. 1809. At this time, it is unknown what happened to her afterwards.
Miha Šutej [1A] and his wife Marija Pavlešič had 3 children, including:
2A. Barbara Šutej b. 1846, m. 1872 to Jurij Maljevac (Mikičev from Učakovci) — they lived at Vukovci 17.
2B. Marija Šutej b. 1846, m. 1865 to Peter Flajnik (Belinov from Perudina).
At this time, the original Šutej lineage ended at this house. In about 1846 Jurij Šutej (Kovačji Grad 8) moved into this house with his wife Barbara Pavlešič (Dolnji Ivančeva from Perudina). Although we have not found evidence of this yet, it is very likely that these two Šutej families have a common ancestry.
Jurij Šutej and his wife Barbara Pavlešič had 6 children, including:
3A. Marija Šutej b. 1848, m. 1868 to Matija Žagar (Medvedkin from Damelj).
3B. Matija Šutej b. 1851, m. 1873 to Ana Šnelar (Polančeva) — they remained at this house.
3C. Miha Šutej b. 1857, m. 1885 to Ana Žagar (Fratrovci 2) — they lived at Vukovci 9.
Matija Šutej [3B] and his wife Ana Šnelar had 6 children, including
4A. Ana Šutej b. 1879, m. 1906 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Jože Moguš (Jančani 10) — they lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
4B. Marija Šutej b. 1883, died at the age of 22. At this time, it is unknown if she was ever married or had children.
4C. Jože Šutej b. 1887, m. 1909 to Marija Filipčič (Fratrovci 20) — they remained at this house.
Jože Šutej [4C] and his wife Marija Filipčič had 9 children, including:
5A. Jože Šutej b. 1910, m. 1940 to Ana Verbanec (Blaževa from Učakovci) — they remained at this house.
5B. Ana Šutej b. 1912, m. 1930 to Marko Malešič (Fratrovci 3).
5C. Matija Šutej b. 1914, m. 1946 to Marija Simčič (Ravidičeva from Vukovci) — they lived at Vukovci 29.
5D. Marija Šutej b. 1919, m. 1967 to Karl Bevc (Podsreda 8).
Jože Šutej [5A] and his wife Ana Verbanec had 5 children.