The Greek War of Independence (1821-1829) resulted in liberation after 400 years of Turkish rule. During the War and immediately after, a series of elections were held to form assemblies and draft constitutions. The Kingdom of Greece was officially established by Bavarian King Otto in 1832; however, an autocracy, not a democracy, ruled the new nation. It was not until 1844 that a the Greek Constitution was passed, a constitutional monarchy was formed, and elections were held for the first regular parliament.

This table shows that parliamentary legislative elections were thereafter held on a regular basis: (the full table can be accessed at Wikipedia here).

Wikipedia: Parliamentary Elections in Greece

Fortunately for historians and genealogists, the General Archives of Greece has published online digitized copies of some Election Lists. The lists are organized by location and contain the names and ages of men over the age of 25, who were eligible to vote. Some lists include the name of the voter’s father as well as the voter’s occupation. As some of the earliest available documents from the formation of the country, these are valuable genealogical resources.

Georgia Stryker Keilman, founder of the website, Hellenic Genealogy Geek and its companion Facebook page, has been translating the Vlachogiannis collection into English. Her monumental work is ongoing, and the translations can be accessed on her website by clicking on the following links for the Index to Greece Historic Election List Archives:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Three collections of Electoral Registers are available on the GAK website as follows (click on each name to access the collection):
1.  Vlachogiannis Collection – covers 1864-1925; mostly 1871-2, and 1875. This is the only collection that is typewritten.
2.  Collection of the Parliament – covers 1844-1893 & 1915; mostly 1870,1880,1890 (handwritten – difficult to read)
3.  Ladas Collection – covers 1843-1873; most records are 1843-1862 .(handwritten – difficult to read)

This is an example from the Vlachogiannis collection, File 25:

1872 Election List, Sparta Vlachogiannis collection (Image 25_393)

This is an example from the Parliament collection, File 26:

1844 Election List, Parliament Collection,, Oinountos (Image 26_421)

This is an example from the Ladas collection, File 22:

1843-44 Election List, Sparta, Ladas Collection, (Image 53)

Accessing information on the GAK website is not intuitive, and can be rather challenging. I have written step-by-step instructions in a pdf file, which can be downloaded here.

Remember also, that help is available from the HellenicGenealogyGeek Facebook page. Our 12,456 members are supportive and helpful, and are happy to answer questions.

We can hope that in the future, more digitized records will be forthcoming. For now, we must work with what we have!