If you would like to know the names of the royalty and learn about their castles and their holdings, you will find the information in Volume IV annotated primarily from Valvosar's writings. Fascinating facts abound including the rise and then the suppression of the Jesuits. Empress Maria Theresa accedes to the throne of the Habsburg monarchy and brings about needed changes in education, agriculture, land reform, and roads to name a few. To increase the welfare of the state, she liberated farmers from serfdom, from the pressures of statutory labor, and from urbarial taxes. The invasion of Napoleon occurred in 1797. The reforms he brought to Slovenia were long lasting.

". . . a history of Carniola (Slovenia) is a necessity for school and home," relates author August Dimitz as he substantiates his reasons for writing a 1,500+-page book (in the German language) about Slovenia in 1875. What better person was there to write this work that focuses on the cultural development of the Slovene people than Dimitz who served as the Secretary of the Carniolan (Slovenian) Historical Society for over 25 years during the mid 1800s. The Slovenian Genealogy Society International, Inc., recognized the value of Dimitz' work and had it translated into English and published in four volumes, realizing this work is an incomparable historical resource for all English-speaking Slovenes and their descendants. A "must read" for anyone interested in knowing the history of Slovenia from primeval times to 1813.

A realistic portrayal of the Turkish invasions and their effect on the population's daily lives is brought to light in Volume II of Dimitz' work. Peasant uprisings plagued the region's growth. The beginnings of the Reformation take root, especially in Laibach (Ljubljana) where most of the nobles and better educated Slovenes lived; Primus Truber, one of the leaders of the Protestant movement, wrote and published the first book in the Slovene language; and the cultural history of the cities is documented regarding trade and industry, mining and land management, law and government, finance, estates and nobility, sanitary matters and humanitarian activity, clergy and religious orders, schools, morality and police, arts, authors, and famous men.

In the quiet farmland of southeastern Slovenia the people of the Mirna Valley endured rule by feudal lords and the Habsburg Empire for over a thousand years. In the early 1600�s, the Bevc Family worked the land in the small village of _entrupert. Three generations and over a hundred years later, their descendants moved to the Debenec hills overlooking the Mirna Valley. The family acquired more land and spread to the nearby towns of Mokronog and Mirna. Economic conditions prompted immigration by almost one-third of the Slovenian people. One Bevc generation, a family of eleven children, found different futures in America or Slovenia. Most traded the green hills and hard work of farming for the harsh life of mining coal in a smoky, industrial town. Each withstood hardships so that their children would have a better life. Many of those children fought in World War II. In Slovenia that meant occupation and Partisan resistance; in America, sons went off to war in Europe and the Pacific.