When 18-year-old John Nicholas Doukas (Ιωάννης Νικολάος Δούκας) stepped off the S.S. Obdam and onto the Ellis Island pier on April 12, 1892, he had no concept of the dramatic turn that his life would take. Arriving with 12 compatriots from the rural settlement of Fregkras, Greece,¹ he had $1.25² in his pocket. He knew no English and had no family in America. He skipped buying himself dinner his first night in order to purchase bananas the next morning. For long hours, he peddled the fruit on the streets of Manhattan and Harlem, continuously reinvesting his daily profits. It wasn’t long before he had accumulated enough money to start a fruit stand. In 1895, merely three years after his arrival, he had saved enough to open a candy store at 59 Avenue B in Manhattan. With no education³, no mentor and no support, John augmented hard work with his innate business sense and inherent morals, making his rise as a businessman astounding.

John’s first candy store, The Alexandria, was a resounding success and after some years, he opened a second establishment, Temple of Delight. People flocked to these stores for the high quality confections and to enjoy kind, generous personal attention from its owner. John supported his neighborhood by actively participating and holding offices in local organizations.

John’s philosophy was to give away his money to the needy and to “die poor.”⁴ He was an orphan, and the poverty of his childhood rested in his soul. He was reminded of his own sufferings when he saw the needs of others, and he resolved to do what was within his purview to alleviate the heaviness and bring a glimmer of joy to those who suffered. “We cannot take our money away with us. We have it only for a time. Health and happiness alone matter. After all, money is bad because it causes too much worry,” he stated in an interview.⁵

From his earliest years, John made giving his priority. “I want to throw some sunshine into the lives of the poor, for I know how dull and drab life may seem to them,” he told his wife, Constantina.⁶ He began sharing his wealth via annual charity sprees. “During a whole week, his activities are confined in distributing the profits made during the preceding fifty-one weeks. Thousands of thousands of boxes of candy are given away, the neighborhood is decorated, and music, dancing and refreshments are given away to all,” was reported by the National Business Review.⁷ Donations of 10-15,000 boxes of candy as well as toys, merchandise and cash were distributed to charitable institutions around the city: homes for the aged, hospitals, orphanages and institutions. Soon, newspapers began reporting on his philanthropic activities.

John’s penchant for giving caused him legal woes in 1920. He was arrested for “conducting a lottery” when he tucked $1 bills into boxes of candy to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his business! One can only laugh…

John’s generosity extended beyond Manhattan to his village in Greece. In 1918, he founded the Prophet Elias Society in Manhattan, whose mission was to benefit poor and orphaned children in the area of Zarakas, Lakonia, Greece, where his settlement was situated. He erected a village school and sent sufficient money to establish an orphanage that housed 400 children in sixteen counties around Sparta.⁸

Around 1902, John married Constantina Gavaris who had immigrated from the Lakonian village of Anavryti. They had eight children; one died in infancy. Their son, Angelo John, married my father’s sister, Georgia Kostakos, which gives me a kinship-via-marriage relationship to this amazing man!

By 1919, John was a thriving businesman who had obtained wealth and social status. He hosted state and local officials at his home in Woodhaven, and received letters from U.S. Presidents Hoover and Coolidge. But of paramount importance, he was revered by thousands as a kind and generous benefactor who “threw sunshine” upon the needy on both sides of the Atlantic. His story not only surpasses the American dream, but also reveals the soul of a truly great man.

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¹Fregkras is now Lampokapos, Zarakas, Lakonia, Greece, about 70 miles southeast of Sparta
²The passenger ship manifest lists $12 as his arrival sum, but subsequent interviews of John relate that he disembarked with $1.25
³John had no schooling; he signed his World War I Draft Registration with an “x”
⁴“Confectioner Spreads Cheer,” The New York American, December 27, 1925, page 4
⁵“Greek Confectioner is Off on His Annual Charity Spree”, New York Evening Journal, June 22, 1925, page 2
⁶“Came over in Steerage Broke-Found Wealth in New York,” The Evening World, Tuesday, June 6, 1922, page 24
⁷“The Golden Rule in Business,” National Business Review. Undated article, in possession of Carol Kostakos Petranek and Neil B. Dukas
⁸Ibid

My sincere appreciation to Neil B. Dukas for chronicling John’s story, establishing a website, and sharing information with me.

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Below are links to a few of the news articles about John:

1906 April – San Francisco Earthquake contribution
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C3H2-J9V1-2?view=fullText

1913 Sep 7 – $200 Diamond in Ice Cream
https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-10449-7947294/the-sun

1919 July 22 – Rihioton Society meeting at estate of John Doukas
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-N3CR-SDPP

1919 August 6 – Baby Christening
https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-10449-1046358/new-york-tribune

1919 Aug 6 – Bishop to Christen Baby
https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-10449-8046384/the-sun

1920 January 19 – Tavales Church Art
https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-10449-8051273/the-sun

1920 April 21, Arrested
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-N3Z2-YX7N?view=fullText

1920 Poor Children to Receive Candy
https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-10449-7749775/the-evening-world

1922 June 6 Paino & Doukas Stories
https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-10449-7760322/the-evening-world

1925 June 22 – Confectioner Spending Spree
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-J38F-ZLX

1925 June 22 – Doukas Goes on His Annual Charity Spree
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-N3ZM-J4WS

1921 December 21 – 15,000 boxes candy Christmas donation
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-F3CR-SVFL

1925 December 23 – Generous Santa
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-J38F-ZLX

1925 December 27 – Confectioner Spreads Cheer
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-N3CR-SJP2

Standard genealogical research methodology just doesn’t work for me. As a Spartan Greek, ancestral research is extraordinarily challenging. Using “low-lying fruit” to find my ancestors is impossible. Census records, military registrations, city directories, the Social Security Death Index, tax lists and obituaries simply do not exist in Greek records—either in accessible repositories or online. DNA testing? A great tool, but only if people take a test. Mine don’t.

I’ve sat through hundreds of genealogy lectures, seminars, programs, and RootsTech presentations that present various research techniques. I understand the GPS (Genealogical Proof Standard) but it’s tough to apply when one can’t conduct  “reasonably exhaustive research” due to lack of records, or “analyze and correlate” how sources relate when sources are limited or do not exist.   

What I could, and did, do was to talk to every living relative and write to Archives and Church Metropolis Offices in Greece. Answers tooks months to receive, and I was thrilled when a record arrived. But clerks are busy and I was limited to one request per letter. I felt  stuck and frustrated.

Thankfully, a few years ago four things changed everything:

1. I attended several sessions on using negative or indirect evidence to establish relationships. This prompted a paradigm shift or “lightbulb moment,” and steered my mindset from conventional to unconventional. I learned that there are alternate ways to determine relationships when direct evidence does not exist (see, for example, Dr. Thomas W. Jones’  Using Indirect and Negative Evidence to Prove Unrecorded Events  and its corresponding handout). Learning the theory transformed my thinking; but without records, there is no evidence—direct, indirect, or negative. 
2. So…I took a research trip to Sparta in 2016. My colleague, Gregory Kontos, guided me to the Sparta office of the General State Archives of Greece, the Metropolis (diocese) of Lakonia, and the City of Sparta Town Hall. We found which records are available onsite. I made a list and returned every summer to obtain whatever extant records existed for my village(s). I got many! I also suggested to Greg that we offer to preserve, free of charge, the marriage records at the Metropolis of Sparta and the village church books of Lakonia. These projects were approved by the Bishop. Working under Greg’s direction, I spent three summers in Sparta digitizing these records. The collections are now available at MyHeritage; they were among the first accessible Greek records online.

3. In 2020, Greg founded GreekAncestry.net, the first online Greek genealogy website. His mission is to preserve and make available genealogical records in all areas of Greece. He locates relevant collections which his team name indexes and makes them available on his website. His work is an enormous breakthrough in Greek genealogy, not only for me but also for thousands of researchers worldwide.

4. Finally, I stopped wishing that someone would set up social media for my primary village and did this myself: a Facebook group and website for Agios Ioannis, Sparta. Waiting for others was wasting my time; I just did it.   

I absolutely recognize that not everyone can travel to their ancestral place of origin to obtain information not available online. That’s where social media can help and why I created the sites for Agios Ioannis. In Europe, village-centered Facebook groups are immensely popular. People have strong ties to their villages and have access to families who live there as well as repositories that exist there. They can translate records, provide contacts for archives and churches, give insights on the history of the area, and ask around for information about your family. Try it! A breakthrough may be waiting for you.

Finally, I have accepted Genealogy Ying-and-Yang: to be both proactive and patient.
Ying: Do all I can to find what’s available, document everything and everyone, and share, share, share.
Yang:  Trust that new records will continue to emerge and that technology will make them available.  

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:

• Hellenic Genealogy Geek Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/19ej98NLMo/
• Hellenic Genealogy Links: https://hellenicgenealogygeek.com/