Advertisements
Greek Ancestry Summer Webinar #1: Prof Gonda van Steen
Prof Gonda van Steen prepared the following handout especially for Greek Ancestry’s followers! You may download it by clicking on the button below.
The Kasotakis Family: The history behind the name
By Giannis Michalakakos – Teacher of Family Studies, Msc Cultural Management In Greece, most of the surnames derive from nicknames, patronymics (paternal given names), occupations and places of origin. The surname “Kassotakis” is an example …
Interview with Angelyn Balodimas-Bartolomei, Recipient of First VPHI Grant
Angelyn could not conceive that the passion engendered by her family history research would lead to her distinction of being the first beneficiary of Greek Ancestry’s VHPI Grant!
Beneficiary Chosen for 1st Village History Project Initiative (VHPI) Grant
Announced in the last session of the International Greek Ancestry Confrence, the VHPI aims at helping people connect and exchange information by fostering collaboration.
Tracing Freedom: 1821 – The Revolution of 1821 and its impact on your ancestors
By Giannis Michalakakos, MSc in Cultural Management In order to fully understand the impact of the 1821 Revolution on Greek families, we have to understand life before, during and after the Revolution. Most of the examples …
Distinctions of Geronthres, Lakonia
By Gregory Kontos, Historian & Founder of Greek Ancestry Introduction After the Greeks’ long and painful struggle for their national independence (1821-1829), they naturally held great expectations for Otto’s Regency Council. However, the Council of …
Village History Projects Initiative (VHPI): Update
By Carol Kostakos Petranek On the third day of the International Greek Ancestry Conference (Jan. 29-31), Gregory Kontos of Greek Ancestry announced a new innovative program, the Village History Projects Initiative, whose purpose is to …
Introducing the Greek Genealogy Guide
Exciting news! The new Greek Genealogy Guide has been released! On the last day of the International Greek Ancestry Conference, Greek Ancestry intern, Alexandra Kiritsy, announced the release of the new online Greek Genealogy Guide, …
Are you ready for the International Greek Ancestry Conference?
The International Greek Ancestry Conference, held from January 29th through the 31st, will be a landmark event for our field of Greek family history and genealogy! 2020 has been a challenging year for us all. …
Greek Ancestry’s Year in Review
Greek Ancestry was founded in January 2020 and will be celebrating its one-year anniversary soon with an International Greek Ancestry Conference scheduled for the end of January 2021. Of course, 2020 has been a tough …
Traditional Greek Dances – An interview with Nikos Bariamis
By Alexandra Kiritsy & Gregory Kontos Alexandra: Yiayia & Me is all about encouraging and helping Greeks around the world to get involved with family history to whatever degree they’d like! We know and appreciate …
Traditional Greek Costumes – An interview with Nikos Bariamis
By Alexandra Kiritsy & Gregory Kontos Alexandra: Yiayia & Me is all about encouraging and helping Greeks around the world to get involved with family history to whatever degree they’d like! We know and appreciate …
Greek Ancestry joins forces with Greece 200 on its “Your Story” project
Today, Greek Ancestry is excited to announce yet another collaboration, this time with Greece 200 on its amazing “Your Story” project! Greece 200 is a Diaspora initiative which aims to compile, promote, and share all …
Reconnection of the Gkounelas Family – 79 Years Later
A few weeks ago, on October 28th, like every year, Greece celebrated the “OXI” day. This year, however, caught me and my family by surprise! Attention: the following story has (surprisingly) nothing to do with COVID-19.
An Unexpected Journey: Tale of “Dimitri” and his abduction
By Alexandra Kiritsy Mysteries are contained within all of our genealogies. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to crack them, but all too frequently, the nature of time and space seem to veil the truth forever. …
NEW! Greek Ancestry’s City Directories Collection
Great news! Over 210,000 CITY DIRECTORY records are available on Greek Ancestry! What’s even better? The records are offered at DISCOUNT, for $4 only! Search now! City Directories are broadly used in genealogy research internationally. …
International Greek Ancestry Conference (Jan. 29-31, 2021)
Save the date – spread the word – join us!
New Records! Messinia & Attiki
Geia sou! We would like you to know that we just released new records for the prefectures of Messinia and Attiki! The villages covered by the new records are: Messinia – Voutena, Makraina [Makrena], Kouloukada, …
Thessaloniki – La Madre de Israel
By Alexandra Kiritsy & Gregory Kontos When Jewish colonists were brought to the newly founded city of Macedonia around 315 B.C., no one could have imagined that Thessaloniki’s history would be closely associated with Jewish …
“My Big Fat Greek Ancestry Summer” Webinar
Despite the pandemic, the past summer was very productive for Greek Ancestry: new collections, new research tools, new analyses and a brand new platform! We would like to share all our news with you this …
Preserving the Records of Greek Orthodox Parishes in America
Greek Ancestry and EMBCA (Eastern Mediterranean Business Culture Alliance) are pleased to announce a groundbreaking initiative to preserve birth, marriage and death records of the earliest Greek communities in America. These documents are rich, untapped …
Statistics Meet Genealogy: Male Aging Patterns in Lakonia (1910s-1930s)
In June 2020, a special article presenting statistics on naming patterns in the prefecture of Chania, Crete, was published on Greek Ancestry. That analysis was based on our database of Male Register records of approximately …
“Lakonian Ancestry” on Aug. 21st – Australia
Dear Spartan brothers and sisters in Australia and New Zealand, Join us this Friday, Aug. 21st, at 6pm (GMT+10) for a presentation on “Laconian Ancestry” organized by Pallaconian Brotherhood of Melbourne & Victoria “Leonidas” and …
Parish Voter Lists
By Gregory Kontos To dive into family history, you need to understand your sources. This has been quite often noted in Greek Ancestry articles and webinars, yet it has to be repeated until it becomes …
Hellenic Genealogy Tourism Conference
Tune in at 2pm EST – 9pm Greece to attend this special conference, organized by the EMBCA, the Hellenic Genealogy Geek and AHEPA:
Finding Yiayia’s “Pirates”
By Alexandra Kiritsy and Andrew Jendrzejewski Our biggest goal with “Yiayia & Me” is to spark curiosity in family history among Greeks. We simply hope to inspire individuals to spend time with their ancestors–of both …
Special Week Ahead
From Sunday, July 26th to Saturday, August 1st, Greek Ancestry is celebrating its 6-month anniversary. How? Sunday, 26th – “Hellenic Genealogy Tourism”: EMBCA, Hellenic Genealogy Geek and AHEPA are organizing a special webinar to be …
Reflections Of My Homeland: The diary of a man from Palaia Fokaia, Asia Minor
By Alexandra Kiritsy Geia sas, everyone! We are very excited to bring you another article about life in Greek villages around the turn of the century. This week’s piece takes us to Asia Minor, where …
20,000 New Records: Achaia & Arcadia
Today, July 1st, 20,000 new records have been added to Greek Ancestry’s databases! Old handwritten voter lists of Arcadia, including the areas of Levidi, Tripoli, Tegea, Kaltezes, Dimitsana, Lagkadia, Valtetsi, Daras, Tsipiana, Alonistaina and many …
Statistics Meet Genealogy: Naming Patterns in Chania, Crete (1850s-1910)
By Gregory Kontos Your grandfather was born in a village close to Chania, Crete in 1902. His name was Antonis, and you are wondering how common a name that was back then. His surname was …
Reflections Of My Homeland: An Account of Village Life in Geraki, Lakonia
Foreword by Alexandra Kiritsy I have always found imagining the world of my Greek yiayia, say, around the turn of the 20th century, to be a difficult task. Looking back at old black-and-white photographs of …
The great importance of “little” source citations
By Gregory Kontos A source citation is a little note of a relatively standard format which indicates where a piece of information was found: the archive, the collection, the folder, the subfolder. Such notes are …
Introducing “Yiayia & Me”
By Alexandra Kiritsy Geia sas and welcome, everyone! Thank you for checking out our first “Yiayia & Me” article! Read on to learn more about this new platform! What is the goal of Yiayia & …
Asia Minor Ancestry
After the great interest expressed in this during the first Greek genealogy webinar of April 25th, 2020, we decided to share this story and information. Some time ago, our team was at the General State …
First ever Greek genealogy webinar – Saturday, April 25th
Join us on Saturday, April 25th, at noon (PST), 1pm (MT), 3pm (EST), through our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/GreekAncestry/). Our topic – voter lists!
Greek Ancestry Education, #2: Using US records to find your ancestors’ surname and village
In this video, Carol Kostakos Petranek, a pioneer of Greek genealogy, will teach you how to use US immigration, naturalization and alien registration records to find your Greek ancestors’ original surname and village of origin.
Greek Ancestry Education, #1: Two things you need to know before starting your research
This video discusses the two things you need to know when starting your research: the family’s original surname and the family’s exact place of origin.