As you cen see by my name, I am also a member of that small tribe of Smreker/Smrekar's. My line has been traced(so far) back to Stephan Smrekar(14 Nov 1838-7 Jul 1918) who came to the US around 1854 to "look around",then returnad home to bring back his brother Mathias and sisters Mary and Catherine. His supposed arrival in NY was on 15 Sept. 1865( cannot be confirmed). I am getting this info from a book put out by a fellow named Bill Helbron in California. He states in the book that the earliest record of a Smrekar that he found was Joseph Smrekar 1 (1784-1850) of Osojnik (pronounced o-soy'-nik). He married on 18 May 1808 in Semic to Margarethe (Pluth) Golobic (a widow).That union produced(amongst others) Joseph II , who fathered the aforementioned Stephen. there is more data in Bill's book . The library of Congress Card # is 96-76120. his address is: Bill Hlebron 1723 Coolcrest Avenue Upland, CA 91784-1837.....He also has an e-mail address but I can"t find it right now...I hope to hear some feedback from you all. There are some holes in his data that someone may be able to plug...happy hunting...Frank Smreker