A modern miracle has upended traditional Greek genealogical research. Now, for the first time, a comprehensive collection of birth, marriage and death information from many rural Greek village churches in Lakonia has been made available on the internet.

Greek church records are historically not found outside the village. Normally, you would have to visit the village in person, locate and then meet the priest, and convince him to allow you to look at the books. Most rural village priests do not speak English; thus, you would need to bring an interpreter. Then, you must then be able to read the entries to find your ancestor’s name.

In 2019, part one of the miracle happened: In his wisdom, His Eminence Efstathios, Metropolitan of Monemvasia and Sparta, welcomed and encouraged digital preservation of both the Metropolis archive of marriage records in 2017 & 2018, and Lakonian village church books in 2019. He also approved their online publication at MyHeritage. At the Bishop’s directive, priests from 139 Lakonian villages brought their birth, marriage, and death books to the Metropolis. I spent seven weeks working in the Metropolis conference room to digitize these precious volumes (see post here).

In 2020, part two of the miracle happened: a small group of dedicated people at GreekAncestry.net had the skills to both decipher the handwriting of the priests and to create indexes of the names and vital data. They read every entry and carefully typed the information into a database. Deciphering old handwriting from the 1800s can challenge even the most highly skilled paleographer! Gregory Kontos, founder of Greek Ancestry, then developed a transliteration formula to transcribe the names into English. The images and indexes were transmitted to our colleagues at MyHeritage for processing and preparation for publication.

On March 10, 2025, part three of the miracle happened: today’s technology enabled the publication of the digital images and name indexes in both Greek and English. The records are now accessible at MyHeritage here: https://www.myheritage.com/research/collection-20905/greece-peloponnese-lakonia-vital-records-1859-1950.

The collection can be searched by name in either Greek or English. In the example below, I typed in English only the surname Kostakos without designating a village or type of record. Birth, marriage and death records for the surname Kostakos in any village are given.

Below are images of each of these three records.

If you are seeking all the records from a specific village, type only the village name in the search box. In the example below, I entered the village of Anavryti. There are 3,444 results.

The image below gives an English translation of the headings of each type of church book.

If you cannot find an ancestor’s record:

• There are restrictions placed on records to protect the privacy of living people. If you cannot find a record, he or she may have been born, married, or died during a timeframe when the record is restricted for publication. This is especially relevant to birth records.
  
  • Date Restrictions (records created after these dates are NOT available online)
    Births: 1920
    Deaths: 1950
    Marriages: 1935
    
• Books in many villages have been lost. As I wrote in my 2019 post, some of these villages are hundreds of years old but their records are recent. When I asked the priests what happened to their missing books, I was told that they had deteriorated due to age, moisture, mold, insect or water damage, and were then were thrown away. Some were used to start fires, others were destroyed during wars. It was heartbreaking for me to see that only a few churches have records which date prior to 1900. Most village books begin around 1912, when the Greek Orthodox Church issued standardized books.

Please consult the following list to see which books are available for each village. Should you wish to contact a village priest, a list of all the churches under the jurisdiction of the Metropolis of Sparta can be found here.