Yiayia & Me
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. Today on Yiayia & Me, we’d like to share one of these...
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 history throughout the centuries. About...
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 the past and present--by learning about their...
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...
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...
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 & Me? Greg and I have been investigating our personal family...