Guest post by Georgia Stryker Keilman, founder, Hellenic Genealogy Geek website and Facebook group

For years, I was focused on proving a family story which prevented me from considering other options and records to understand the history of my maternal great-great grandmother, Marigo Fousketakis (maiden name unknown).  

This is the story as told to me by my mother in the 1980s.  My great-great grandfather, Ioannis Fousketakis, was from Hania, Crete.  He was conscripted into the Ottoman Empire military.  During his service, in what is currently Turkey, he met a young woman and fell in love.  She sewed gold coins into the hems of her clothing and ran off to be married.  They ended up in Sparta, Greece and had four sons. 

My mother heard this story for the first time after her mother’s death in 1967 (over 100 years after the event).  My grandfather was visiting us and, over a cup of coffee, told my mother the story.  Why hadn’t her mother ever told her this?  My grandfather supposedly indicated it was because Marigo was “Turkish,” and my grandmother was ashamed to have this “Turkish” intermarriage in the family history.  My mother assumed that being Turkish meant that she was Muslim and had converted to Greek Orthodox to marry. 

Based on my mother’s assumptions, I made another assumption, that my great-great grandparents had fled from Turkey (Ottoman Empire) and went directly to Sparta.  This was based on the fact a Muslim woman could not marry a Greek Orthodox male in the Ottoman Empire. It was against the law, and she would have been executed.  I hoped I would be able to find some documentation regarding her conversion to the Greek Orthodox religion and a marriage record.  I was unsure of the approximate date.

I reviewed the Mitroon Arrenon (Male Registers) for Crete on the GAK website, looking for a birth record for Ioannis Fousketakis, and then did further research in the archives in Sparta.

·         Did not locate a record for the birth of Ioannis Fousketakis

·         Located Mitroon Arrenon for GEORGIOS, son of Ioannis – born 1848 in Agios Marinas, Crete (village near Hania).

·         Located Mitroon Arrenon for NIKOLAOS, son of Ioannis – born 1857 in Sparta, Greece

·         Located Mitroon Arrenon for my great-grandfather, ANASTASIOS Fousketakis, son of Ioannis – born 1874 in Sparta, Greece.

·         I also located the 1897 Sparta marriage record for EMMANOUIL Fousketakis, son of Ioannis – no birth date indicated.

There are 26 years between the births of Anastasios in 1874 and Georgios in 1848.

Based on this age difference I didn’t think that Georgios was in my direct family. Instead, becauseGreek male names can repeat, generation after generation, I assumed these records referred to a different branch of the family.  I totally ignored the Crete records that referenced Ioannis Fousketakis from Crete for years as not being “my Ioannis Fousketakis” because a child born in Crete didn’t fit into my family story. 

If Ioannis and Marigo had a son born in Crete, that would mean that the family story of the couple running away and going directly to Sparta from Turkey to marry would be incorrect.

Instead, if they came back to Crete, which was part of the Ottoman Empire, Marigo must have been from a family who was Greek Orthodox living in current Turkey which was also part of the Ottoman Empire. 

Lessons learned:

• Consider the source of your family story.  My source was my mother, who heard the story from her father, who heard the story from his wife who was the granddaughter of Ioannis Fousketakis.  On reflection, it is not hard to believe that my grandfather could have embellished the story.

• Follow the records, not the story.  I totally dismissed records that didn’t fit the scenario I was trying to prove.

NOTE: This is the second in a three-part series, Follow the Records. Read Part One here.