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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 held on Sunday, July 26th, at 2pm...
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 a man by the name of Theodoros Kalatzoglou once lived in a village...
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 more! Voter lists...
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 Marinakis, and again you’re wondering “how many Marinakis were there in that...
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 her often tricks my mind into thinking that her world was...
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 internationally considered a primary standard in...
Beneficiary Chosen for Village History Project Initiative (VHPI) Grant
Announced in the last session of the International Greek Ancestry Conference, the VHPI aims at helping people connect and exchange information by fostering collaboration.
Calling All Young Greeks: Why and How You Should Explore Your Family History
By Alexandra Kiritsy Learning your personal family history can be an incredibly meaningful adventure. As the saying goes, you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you have been, and there is no better time to delve into your family’s past than as a young...
Greek Ancestry Summer Webinar #3: Prof Angelyn Bartolomei-Balodimas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN0Xe1neJes
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Καλωσήρθες! Welcome to the Greek Genealogy Guide!
Here you can learn everything you need to know about Greek genealogy and family history.
Written by
Gregory Kontos
and
Carol Kostakos Petranek
Hellenic ancestry is a source of extraordinary pride and unique identity. Learning the country’s history and understanding the life of its people is a continual journey of knowledge and discovery. Perhaps this is most evident in pursuing the study of one’s Greek family history. Fostering a connectedness to family can stretch beyond the living to include the departed, but only when information about them can be ascertained. What were the names of our second or third great-grandparents? How many children did they have? What were their occupations? And, most important—how do I even begin to access records about them?
Prior to now, answering these questions has been challenging. But the doors of Greek genealogy have now opened to reveal a new era in research. The work being done by Gregory Kontos of Greek Ancestry is groundbreaking and exciting. With the advent of online translated, name-indexed and searchable records from Greece, finding one’s ancestors is not only possible—it is highly probable!
By consulting this Guide, one can navigate the complexities of Greek genealogy and find the correct resources to both access and request relevant documentation for his or her ancestors. It is the beginning of an exciting journey of discovery—and love.
Carol Kostakos Petranek
January 31, 2021