Category Archives: Genealogy

The Self-Construction and Self-Use of the Loom and of the Dyeing of Woven Fabrics in Our Villages

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by Panagiotas / Tinia Georg. Kalkanis – Argyri
published in The Faris Newsletter Issue 82, July 2025, pages 13-15

In the villages of our region, as in almost all the villages of the non-urban areas of the country, until the end of the previous century, their economy was and remained almost self-sufficient and based on exchange among the households as well as the craftsmen of the area. This meant that almost all the needs of homes and families were covered or met through the exchange of their agricultural and livestock farming products and through the exchange of labor and working hours among the residents.

Even the making and the use of “tools” that required specialized knowledge or skills were carried out within the communities of the villages (or in their neighboring ones) by self-construction and self-use. A most characteristic example was the loom which covered the entire process of design, creation, and making people’s clothing (the woolen garments), as well as the necessary bedding, coverings, and decorations of the houses.

Modern Greece Weaving Loom
Greek History exhibit, Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece.
Complete indexed photo collection at WorldHistoryPics.com.

Here we must refer to our multiskilled ancestors who learned from improvisation, experimentation, applications and improvements, to reach the rationality and the experience of perfection in their self-made constructions (…). Most of them practiced many and different professions (and crafts) at the same time. Giorgis St. Rigakos (or Stylianakos), for example, practiced in Goranoi until his eighty-fourth year, in old age, the professions/crafts of farmer, lumberjack, carpenter, floor-layer, cooper, basketmaker, house roofer, farrier, saddle-maker, tool and loom maker…

We must also mention the women of our villages who had -all of them- exceptional skills and endurance to be wives, mothers, and housekeepers, but also nurses, farmwomen, cooks, seamstresses, bakers, weavers, embroiderers, knitters… with imagination and lateral thinking.

Along with the self-construction and self-use of the loom, we refer in this note to the process of searching, testing, and selecting natural dyes for the threads/yarns from local plants and herbs, completing the making and artistry of the woven fabrics.

We must, of course, remember that up until the end of the previous century there were no such dyes available commercially in a variety of colors. But we must also correct the notion cultivated by many people that every substance (food, medicine, dye, cosmetic, …) that comes from nature is more effective and safer, without side effects, than the corresponding substances that come from chemical laboratories.

Their supposed “purity” (!?) should not be attributed only to their composition—since they consist of the same chemical elements and compounds as the commercial ones—but mainly, their dosage and other characteristics must necessarily be controlled, such as the pesticides, the environment in which they grow (temperature, rainfall, humidity, …), their processing, etc. The artisans of the dyeing industry learned empirically the secrets for achieving beautiful, bright, and -above all- indelible / unalterable colors resistant to light and washing.

Woven wool blanket on the loom.
It was woven and dyed with natural dyes from plants around 1945 by our compatriot Valaso Solomou, daughter of Konstantinos, wife of Fotios Asimakopoulos, son of Ioannis.

The dyeing of the yarns, after they were washed (always in lukewarm water and with the homemade soap that each family made), was done carefully—coordinating the fire with the boiling—then spreading / wringing them in natural air and without strong sunlight, so that the dye would “set” and become uniform, but without the yarns becoming moldy.

First, however, they had to search for, test, experiment in practice, and select roots, leaves, but also barks and fruits of trees and wild herbs, to create the colors of the dyes they desired. All these were pounded, soaked overnight or boiled, strained, cooled, and  afterwards poured into the water where the yarns were, and boiled for four to five hours. They often rinsed them with *alísiva* (lye).

For example, to get the brown color for the yarns (threads), they used husks from green walnuts. To get the dark walnut color or honey color, they added tobacco, while to get the sweet light brown of the ripe apple, they used leaves and soaked dry onion peels. For dark olive or khaki color (and oak color), they used dried acorns. For yellow, they used venetian sumach (Cotinus coggygria) and daffodils; for beige, bark of wild almond trees; while for red, roots and leaves of holly oak and heather. Finally, for dark blue, they bought (!) from the flower shops indigo (a mineral imported from China), which they washed in lukewarm water.

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NOTE: In 2022, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation initiated a collaboration with the Cultural Society of Geraki to investigate and relate the story of the history of weaving in Geraki. The Geraki Weaving website has photos, videos, and descriptions of the project.

I (Carol Kostakos Petranek) am honored to receive permission from the Katsoulakos family to translate and share articles from The Faris. Translation verification and corrections have been made by GreekAncestry.net. This is the twenty-fourth article of the ongoing series. Previous articles can be viewed here.

Memory Eternal: Georgia Stryker Keilman

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My dear friend and Greek genealogy colleague, Georgia Stryker Keilman, left earth suddenly and unexpectedly on January 5, 2025. Over the past fifteen years, we have collaborated and planned and worked together on many projects and initiatives to benefit our worldwide Hellenic genealogy community. We encouraged each other to keep moving forward on both our personal research, and on our individual and joint efforts to help people of Greek descent learn how to find their ancestral families. Words cannot describe my intense feelings of loss.

Georgia was a pioneer in the Greek genealogy community. On April 16, 2010, when Facebook was in its infancy, she conceptualized a group with a two-fold mission: a place where she could share information about Greek genealogy, and a forum where Greeks worldwide could help each other with their genealogy research. Her Hellenic Genealogy Geek Facebook group is now the meeting place for our community with an astounding 45,800 members (as of this date)!

But Georgia did not stop there. She created a companion Hellenic Genealogy Geek Blog which gave her a narrative format to write about print, photographic and online resources. In 2012, Georgia discovered that Election Registers for the years 1872-1873 were online at the General State Archives of Greece website. She downloaded hundreds of pages and began transcribing the names from Greek into English. She published these lists on her blog and printed them in books, thus creating what most likely is the first online-accessible indexed records of Greek names on both the internet and in print.

The community’s enthusiastic response to Georgia’s work encouraged her to keep going. Her number of translated lists grew rapidly.

Georgia continued this work for several years, completing translations for the astounding number of 253 villages! She reluctantly “retired” from this project only when our friend, Gregory Kontos founded GreekAncestry.net. Georgia’s lists are still in use and remain online here. Their organization by village makes them especially useful, allowing researchers to easily identify family surnames specific to each village.

In 2021, Georgia felt it would be helpful for the community to have a website of Greek research links–a “one stop shop” of sorts, where people interested in a specific topic could find information without having to spend hours surfing the web. That’s when Hellenic Genealogy Geek Research Links was created. Our conversations for weeks centered on this project. Georgia spent countless hours combing through both the web and her personal data collections to compile and organize thousands of online links.

In addition to the Facebook group and her two websites, Georgia helped organize the first-ever in-person Greek genealogy conferences in the United States: April 2015 at Holy Trinity Cathedral Ballroom in New York City with Ilias Katsos and the Education and Culture Committee of the Hellenic American Chamber of Commerce; and September 2015 at the Hellenic Memorial Building at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Salt Lake City with the Hellenic Cultural Association and the Ethnic and Mining Museum of Magna, Utah. She and I worked together and rejoiced together at these historic events which enabled diaspora Greeks to meet, learn and share their passion for genealogy.

Georgia’s friendship with Gregory Kontos of Greek Ancestry was priceless–filled with humor, mutual appreciation and respect. She so enjoyed working with him to plan and organize Greek genealogy conferences and webinars; and to coordinate the first-ever podcast for Greek genealogy, “G(r)eek Talk.” Georgia’s analytical mind always predominated in these planning sessions, and we were confident that she would find any “hole” or missing piece in whatever was being considered. And she always did!

The most recent initiative that Georgia and I completed together was the video series, “Bite-Sized Greek Genealogy.” We noticed that new members of HGG were asking the same questions and decided that brief recordings would be an effective way to provide answers. We brainstormed topics and ideas, found relevant materials, and had many laughs in creating the series. When it was finished, Georgia suggested that we create a companion booklet which would contain the talking points of our videos as well as additional information and online links. She was always seeking ways to make something good even better.

These initiatives were on top of Georgia’s daily tasks: to administer the ever-growing HGG Facebook group, to continue to locate and publish information for her websites, and to work on her own personal research. The project of most importance to her personally was “Your Greek Roots,” a family history book she wrote in 2019. Dedicated to her nieces and nephews, it represents Georgia’s desire to ensure that her closest family members understand their heritage and never forget their roots. I can testify that compiling this book and contemplating its importance to her family brought Georgia immense joy.

“Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.” ~ Aristotle [Nicomachean Ethics]

Georgia’s intentions, efforts and choices led to her to devote this stage of her life to helping others. This is her legacy and for it, she will remain highly respected, deeply loved and forever missed.

Please see this wonderful article about Georgia which was published in NeosKosmos on February 26, 2018.

OBITUARY

Georgia Stryker Keilman, aged 74, passed away peacefully at her home on January 5, 2025, in Mount Prospect, Illinois. She is survived by her brothers, Tom and Peter, as well as her adult nieces and nephews: Alexandra (Daniel), Christine, Christopher (Lindsey), Steven (Kellie), George, Michael, Katherine (Zar), and Sergio. Georgia was also a devoted great-aunt to her beloved grand-nephews and nieces: Elijah, Isaac, Maddie, Evelyn, Jack, and Nina.

Born as Georgia Ann Stryker, she was the eldest daughter of Ann and George Stryker of Chicago, Illinois. Georgia’s warm personality and adventurous spirit shaped her remarkable life. She pursued a successful career as Director of International Marketing in the medical device industry, which afforded her opportunities to travel extensively. During her career, she lived in Boston, Massachusetts; Sydney, Australia; and Athens, Greece, before ultimately returning to the Chicago area to be near her family.

Georgia had a deep love for her family, a keen talent for research, and a genuine curiosity that inspired her to embark on a meticulous investigation into her family’s Greek genealogy. In 2009, she founded the online community “Hellenic Genealogy Geek,” a platform dedicated to sharing and exploring Greek ancestry. This community, which began as a passion project, eventually grew to include over 45,000 members from around the world. Georgia found immense joy and purpose in connecting Greeks in the diaspora with their familial heritage and ancestral roots.

Her contributions to the Hellenic Genealogy community are considered her life’s work. Georgia’s dedication to assisting people worldwide in uncovering and cherishing their family legacies is a lasting testament to her generous and inquisitive spirit.

Georgia will be deeply missed and lovingly remembered by her friends, family, and the global community she nurtured. A private family gathering will be held in her honor. Additionally, condolences and prayers from her online community will be shared at a memorial event hosted virtually.

For those wishing to make a donation in Georgia’s memory, contributions can be made to support the archives of rural Greek villages via the following link: https://www.facebook.com/100001113949069/posts/8921917944521915/.

To learn more about the Hellenic Genealogy Geek community, please visit:

Genealogy Tourism in Sparta

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Dear Friends,

On Tuesday, September 3 at 6:00 p.m., I have been invited to give a presentation in Sparta, Greece on “Genealogy Tourism” (see news article here). My cousin, Georgios Kostakos, recently organized Sparta.Komvos, a group that hosts a variety of speakers and events that both educate and interest youth and modern Spartans.

Georgios asked if I could talk about the work I have been doing for many years with Spartan genealogy research. As I considered what could be of interest for this audience, I decided to help them understand the concept of Heritage Travel, or Diaspora Travel, or Genealogy Tourism — whichever term is used — and the opportunities it can bring. Businesses, artisans, shop owners and the hospitality industry could reap significant benefits by welcoming family historians.

We are a niche group with specific needs and expectations when we travel to visit our ancestral land. We want to find living cousins, go to the archives and research, understand our heritage, immerse ourselves in culture, and “walk where our ancestors walked.” Going to the beach and touring ancient ruins is a side note, not the purpose of our visit. I think it would be helpful for the Spartan community understand this type of tourism, and how they can prepare to help us researchers when we visit. The benefits that will come to them could be significant.

If you have suggestions to share with me that I can share with this group, I would love to hear from you. Please, send me a message and I will pass along your thoughts.

I’ll let you know how the event is received. Wish me luck! 🙂

New Video Series: Bite-Sized Greek Genealogy

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My colleague, Georgia Stryker Keilman of Hellenic Genealogy Geek and I have embarked on a new venture: a series of short videos to address the most common research questions that people ask. Each video will address a specific topic and have an accompanying handout.

“Bite-Sized Greek Genealogy” videos are being produced and uploaded to the Hellenic Genealogy Geek YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@HellenicGenealogyGeek-sp4pf

Our first videos are available now. The first is “Tips about Names and Villages” with information that we wish we had known when we started our research.

The second is “How to Find Your Grandfather’s Greek Name” which shows a wide variety of records that will give you this information. Trying to find ancestors in Greece without the original Greek surname is virtually impossible.

The third is “How to Find Your Ancestor’s Village of Birth.” This can be tricky, as many people gave just a county (prefecture) or the nearest city, rather than their exact village.

Be sure to download the handout for each video, which can be found in the Description area below the video.

We will be announcing more recordings over the next few weeks. We hope they will be helpful to you!

Verify All the Names: A Case Study

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The church marriage record was clear: Theodoros Dimitrios Kouris married Dimitroula Chatzakou, daughter of Ioannis, first marriage for both, on April 24, 1875:

Finding this record [1] for one of my Agios Ioannis families meant that I now had the name of Theodoros’ wife and the mother of his children. Everything seemed to line up:  the wedding was in 1875 and the first child was born in October 1878, although the birth (if it was a first birth) was a tad late for that time period. I entered the information in my database and to online trees at FamilySearch, Ancestry and MyHeritage. Almost immediately, hints for records in Massachusetts popped up for the children. Not unusual – many families immigrated to America in the early 1900s. I checked one of the hints, a marriage record for son Apostolos, and noted with curiosity that his mother’s name was written not as Chatzakou, but as Pantazou.

Well, the two surnames sort of sound alike. I wondered if this was a clerical error (misunderstood the name?) or a mistake on the part of the child (some are unsure of their mother’s maiden name!).

Checking further, I saw that the Pantazou surname in U.S. records was found for other children in the family. Clearly, there was a disconnect somewhere.

Because this family is not related to me, I was not planning to research this line further. (My goal is to get the Greek records online so that descendants can make the leap from the U.S. to Greece). But I felt it was important to alert other researchers to the discrepancy, so I added this note in the profiles for both Theodoros and Dimitroula: Dimitroula’s surname, according to her Sparta marriage record, is Chatzakou. However, there are records in the U.S. giving her surname as Pantazou. Either there are two Theodoros Kouris’ in Massachusetts — one married to Chatzakou and one to Pantazou, OR her surname changed in the U.S.

Before moving on to extract another family name from Agios Ioannis records, I did make one additional entry for Theodoros: I marked him as deceased and in the place field, I put “Of Massachusetts, United States.” The word “of” signifies that this was a guess, as I did not have proof of the fact.

This entry proved to be a mistake for me and a red flag for Theodoros’ geat-granddaughter , Niki, who had been researching her family and found my note in an online tree. In an email to me, she wrote:

I want to clarify another piece that you aren’t aware of. Theodore never came to the US. His wife and all of their children came around 1909….except for Nikoletta, who stayed back to care for her father, Theodore, who was blind, and unable to travel at that time. In 1920, Dimitroula returned to Agios Ioannis and planned to travel with Theodore and Nikoletta back to Boston, to join the rest of the family…However, Theodore died unexpectedly, very shortly before they were scheduled to sail. Dimitroula and Nikoletta came without him, in the summer of 1920. The ship record shows only their two names. So you might want to modify your note about Dimitroula’s surname discrepancy since Theodore was never in the United States.

Oh my! Grateful for this clarification, I quickly corrected Theodoros’ death place to Agios Ioannis.

Niki had initially contacted me a few weeks ago when she found the marriage for Theodoros and Dimitroula Chatzakou online at MyHeritage[1]. She knew her great-grandmother was Dimitroula Pantazos, and the record naming Chatzakou was mystifying. Looking further and searching on “Pantazos,” she found and then sent me another marriage record which was indexed as: Theodoros D. Kontis and Dimitroula Pantazos, daughter of Anast., married October 29, 1876. She commented: “Could it be that the handwritten record from 1876 was translated incorrectly, into Kontis instead of Kouris?”

We outlined the issues:

  1. The handwritten Greek in both marriage records was too scribbly for either of us to clarify whether the name was Kouris or Kontis.
  2. This second marriage record shows it was Theodoros’ second marriage [B] and Dimitroula Pantazou’s first marriage [A].
  3. Their marriage occurred in October 1876, exactly 18 months after Theodoros’ marriage in April 1875.
  4. If this record was indeed for Theodoros Kouris, then his first wife [Chatzakou] would have died shortly after marriage [perhaps in childbirth?].
  5. With Georgios born in October 1878, he and his siblings would be the children of Theodoros’ second wife, Pantazou–making the 1878, exactly two years aftermarriage, birth more realistic for the times.

Clearly, the answer lay in the clarification of Theodoros’ surname. A quick message to Gregory Kontos at GreekAncestry resolved the mystery: both marriage records were for Theodoros Kouris; the second record was transcribed incorrectly.

A few points to consider from this case study:

  1. NEVER trust a name index!
  2. ALWAYS review the original record. If it’s in Greek and unreadable to you, someone else can help. Upload to the Hellenic Genealogy Geek Facebook page or send to Greg Kontos at GreekAncestry.
  3. Search a variety of records to verify information. In this situation, looking at U.S. records for several of Theodoros’ children revealed the same mother’s name. This raised the chances that the children were correct, and the possibility that there was either an error in the marriage record or a second marriage for Theodore.
  4. Document facts that don’t correlate, and make sure those notes are attached to each individual that is affected.
  5. If you are making an assumption, state what the assumption is and why you are making it. I did not do this for Theodoros’ death place when I listed it as Massachusetts.
  6. Theodoros had two wives with the same first name, which caused incorrect assumptions. The children’s baptismal records in the village church book gave their mother’s name as only Dimitroula (no surname) which caused me to assume that the Chatzakou record was correct.
  7. Niki kept looking for information and changed her search terms to “Pantazos” which led her to finding her great-grandparents’ marriage record and the incorrect transcription of Theodoros’ surname. If she had not kept looking, the mystery would have remained.
  8. Just because “this is the way it was” don’t assume that is true in your situation. I assumed that Theodoros had come to the U.S. with (or before) his children, which was the pattern for Greek men at the turn of the century. In this case, that was not the case. The mother came with the children, and the father remained in the village–a complete reversal of the norm.
Family of Theodoros Kouris and Dimitroula Pantazou, about 1902
Anna, Theodoros, possibly Anastasios (standing), Nikoletta, Dimitroula Pantazou, possibly Harry

[1] See Sparta Marriages 1835-1935 online at MyHeritage.com