It is April 2020 and I am spending my time researching my family history. Luckily, I ran across GreekAncestry.net and found records for my ancestors; amazing records! I managed to find a lot information, which helped me trace my ancestry back to the early 1800s! However, there was something that just didn’t fit in! A man called Vasileios Kaouris appeared in a record of 1890. Not only hadn’t anyone in my family ever heard of that person, but also, according to the record, he resided in Wallachia, Romania! What was also weird was that that man had not left any other traces. No other records could be found for him, as if he had disappeared!
Wondering what I could do with that piece of information, I booked a free consultation with Gregory Kontos. We discussed my case in detail and, at some point, I mentioned I had taken a DNA test a couple of years ago. Like many of you guys, after receiving my results, I had not really paid any more attention. Gregory asked me to take one more look at my results, specifically my DNA matches. I was advised to narrow down matches by country and look for relatives in Romania. The closest match from Romania was a young man, a 3rd to 5th cousin! Fortunately, he had a little family tree attached to his profile. Bingo! A Kaouris was in his tree! I contacted the Romanian cousin right away. He replied after a few minutes, telling me that his great grandfather was Greek and was called Christakis Kaouris. That’s all he knew, as his g-grandfather had died during WWI. Greek Ancestry’s team took it up from there!
They gathered all info from all sides and used all records available. The puzzle was solved, and the story was revealed! Vasileios Kaouris, the man who had gone to Wallachia, Romania, proved to be my g-g-g-grandfather’s brother! He was born in Platanos, Aitoloakarnania, in 1855. His father, Nikolaos, was a merchant, and from a young age Vasileios was taught the art of trade. He soon joined his relatives in travels across the Balkan peninsula, and by 1890, he had already settled in Romania. Around that time, Vasileios got married and had a son, Christakis. At some point, Christakis, Vasileios’s son, met a young Romanian girl with whom he had a son, Mircea, ‘Peaceful’ in Romanian. As Vasileios and Christakis never came back to Greece, my family forgot them. But DNA didn’t! Mircea’s grandson took a DNA test, as did I. We, the 4th cousins still shared some DNA. After 100 years, the connection was retrieved!
