Tombstone inscriptions often give clues about the birthplace of the deceased. Always check cemeteries. Another 53,000 came from the subgroups called Dalmatians, Bosnians and Herzegovinians. The Croats are one of the South Slav peoples who inhabit what formerly was Yugoslavia, and they began coming to the United States in significant numbers about a century ago. Today there are between 500,000 and 750,000 American who are entirely or partially of Croatian descent, making the Croats the most numerous of the South Slav groups that have settled in this country.
Some authorities argue that their number is more than a million.
However, precise figures cannot be obtained because in the 19th century Croatian immigrants tended to identify themselves in terms of the region from which they had come Slavonia, Dalmatia, Istria, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Until 1918 the U.S. Immigration Service did not distinguish Croatians from Slovenes or other immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Caniola, the central Slovene province, provided the large majority of Slovene immigrants to this country. However the return migration to Croatia was high. During this time one of every two Croatians and Slovenes returned to their homeland, at least for a while.