The 2nd International Greek Ancestry conference is steaming live today & tomorrow (Saturday & Sunday, January 29-30) on the Greek Ancestry YouTube channel.
Sessions begin at noon EST both days. No registration needed. Just click and join! We have 18 sessions with outstanding presenters. A detailed Conference schedule can be accessed at the Greek Ancestry website.
An International Time schedule is below. Hope to “see” you there!
Recorded session of Day 1 of the Greek Ancestry Conference, January 29, 2021
Recorded session of Day 2 of the Greek Ancestry Conference, January 30, 2021
Recorded session of Day 3 of the Greek Ancestry Conference, January 31, 2021
This Conference was sponsored by Greek Ancestry and Hellenic Genealogy Geek.
The purpose of this conference is to share information that will be relevant to both beginning and advanced researchers which will assist them in their quest to learn more about their family history. Our sessions are presented by professional historians as well as seasoned genealogy researchers who have volunteered their time to share their expertise and knowledge.
The conference was live-streamed and recorded on the Greek Ancestry YouTube channel.
The agenda for the conference is below. All times given are Eastern Standard Time. The international times for each session are on the second half of the document.
This post was written by my colleague, Gregory Kontos, founder of GreekAncestry.net. I am both proud and honored to be part of this 10-year movement in Greek genealogy. It is the capstone of my life to honor my ancestors, participate in Greek record preservation, and to help others.
Gregory Kontos and me, preparing to digitize Lakonia village church books at the Metropolis of Sparta, 2019
Below is a list of some of the events highlighted. Please read the full article here.
Ten years Hellenic Genealogy Geek:
An assessment of last ten-year developments
In a few days, on April 16th, Hellenic Genealogy Geek celebrates its anniversary. When it was created ten years ago, in 2010, no one would have imagined the developments that were to follow in the field of Greek genealogy. Feeling blessed to have participated in some of them, I decided to list those which I consider the most emblematic and add my own testimony. It is a story of people sharing their passion and joining forces to advance Greek genealogy.
In the final paragraph, Gregory invites us all to join in this exciting and groundbreaking movement: Co-operations are deemed necessary, and, for this reason, as Greek Ancestry’s founder, I would like to make an open call to whoever is interested in the advancement of the field.
You can read the full article here.
Please join us in Virginia Beach for an informative and lively conference! See the flier below the agenda.
This conference will be broadcast via FB live. You can watch either the entire conference or segments of your choice at: https://www.facebook.com/stnicksgoc/
Presenters:
Sam Williams
Carol Kostakos Petranek
Matt Ellsworth
9:00 Arrival
9:30-10:00 Introduction to Hellenic Genealogy
Why Orthodox Christians Should Do Their Genealogy – Sam
Greek Genealogy Toolbox – Carol
Making connections: Internet resources – Carol
10:00-10:30 Using U. S. Records to Prepare for Research in Greece – Carol
10:30-11:00 Using DNA in Hellenic Research – Sam
Break: 10 minutes
11:10-12:10 Research in Cyprus – Matt Ellsworth (via Skype)
12:10-1:00 Lunch Break
1:00-2:00 Greek Civil Records in Archives and Town Halls
Male Registers
Town Registers
Election Lists
Contracts and Dowries
2:00-2:45 Orthodox Church Records in Greece
Village Church Records – Carol
Metropolis Records – Carol
U.S. Orthodox Church Records – Sam Williams
2:45-3:00 Q&A – Conclusion
After four days of classes and meetings at the largest genealogy conference in the world, I am both energized and exhausted. RootsTech, held every year in Salt Lake City, Utah, is a sensory as well as intellectual experience. The vacant hallways of the Salt Palace before opening day give no hint of the pandemonium about to hit.
Before and after
Choosing from the myriad of classes was tough, but I was drawn to sessions focusing on records preservation (both archival and personal), what’s new and upcoming at MyHeritage and FamilySearch, resolving conflicting evidence, alien registrations, military research, and DNA. I enjoy and learn from Mary Tedesco’s Italian genealogy classes, as research strategies in Italy and Greece are similar.
But the most rewarding part of this RootsTech was connecting with several friends of Greek descent. One is a volunteer at the Family History Library on Wednesday mornings and helps people with their Greek research. For the past ten years, she has guided patrons in their quest to get started. She related that most people do not know the original surname and village of origin of their ancestral family, and with no centralized online database in Greece, research must be done at the local level by mail or in person. Thus, much of her assistance centers on teaching patrons how to use U.S. records to find needed information.
My Greek friends at the Family History Library.
There is a feature on the FamilySearch Family Tree app which calculates how many people, within 100 yards, are related to you. Twenty thousand people attend RootsTech, with thousands in the Expo Hall at any given moment. Every year, I pull up this app and every year, my matches are ZERO! The real-time board which displays the numbers of related attendees irritates my Greek friend, Georgia, and me. It is so annoying to hear people say, “I have 300 cousins in this hall right now” when we have none.
We have zero cousins in the expo hall!
But I do have many blogger friends in the genealogy community known as GeneaBloggers. We write about our research and our ancestral families; our backgrounds are multi-cultural and our blogs reflect our areas of expertise. Our goals are to assist others in learning how to research, and to support each other in our own efforts. We are a tight group but never exclusive, and invite any and all who write about family history to join us.
The Family History Library (FHL) is one block away from the Salt Palace and most genealogists split their time between the two venues. The FHL provides access to digitized materials which, due to contractual restrictions, must be viewed either there or in one of the 4,500 Family History Centers worldwide. Its collection of 2.5 million microfilms is almost entirely digitized, but some have not yet been converted; thus, it is the place to go to view these films. The FHL has 3,000 microfilms of records from Greece, predominantly the region around Athens and some islands. This list, compiled by Lica Catsakis, can be found here. While most Greek films have been digitized, some remain on microfilm and can be viewed and downloaded at a scanner such as the one below.
Microfilm scanner at the Family History Library.
Microfilm image of a page from a death index book, Thessaloniki, 1918.
The FHL has a few reference books for Greek research. Of particular value are the gazetteers, or geographical dictionaries. Since the Revolution of 1821, many villages underwent name changes, consolidations, or even extinction. This image shows a list of villages in the Dimos Lakedaimonos in 1836.
Join me at RootsTech next year! The dates are February 26-29, 2020. I can promise you an extraordinary experience of inspiration and education. And great fun!
Spartan Roots (Σπαρτιατικές Ρίζες) 