GREEKS HAVE A LONG HISTORY IN THAILAND by Ioanna Zikakou  Published by the Greek Reporter - World on March 28, 2015 According to an old saying, there is a Greek person under every rock, meaning that Greeks have spread out across the world, and they are getting involved in the everyday lives of their respective countries.  Costantin Gerachi, also known as Constance Phaulkon, was a Greek adventurer born in 1687 within the fortress of Asso in northern Cephalonia to Greek Orthodox parents. Phaulkon worked for England’s East India Company and later, in 1675, he traveled to Siam -today’s Thailand- as a merchant. He was fluent in English, French, Portuguese, Malay and Thai, so in just a few years he began working at the court of King Narai as a translator. Due to his experience with the East India Company, he was soon able to become the king’s prime counsellor, working in the country’s Treasury.  Phaulkon quickly rose among the ranks of nobles in Siam, becomi...

Part of the process of making linen thread... A Cretan woman rubbing the dried linen grass down a board across a circle of nails to separate the filaments..... This photograph is being shared from a Facebook post by our HellenicGenealogyGeek.com friend Helene Semanderes.  Source of original photograph unknown.

FamilySearch.org  has FREE databases that will allow you to view census forms for people listed as being born in Greece and residing in New Jersey. LINK TO 19,365 RECORDS Includes the following record sets: United States Census, 1850  United States Census, 1860 United States Census, 1870 United States Census, 1880 United States Census, 1900 United States Census, 1910 New Jersey, State Census, 1915 United States Census, 1920 United States Census, 1930 United States Census of Merchant Seamen, 1930 United States Census, 1940 Each year the census form is different and  FamilySearch.org does a great job of providing information for each year.  (Click on a name and then follow the link on the right hand side titled "About this collection".)

The digital collections of the Greek State Archives offer a wealth of information to those of us interested in Greek genealogy.  As part of their online collection is the "Election Material From the Collection of Vlachoyiannis" .  This includes "General Election Lists" for each Municipality; recorded by community (city, village, settlement, etc.). You can view a scanned copy of each list, printed in the Greek language.  This is a GREAT resource, but very difficult to navigate for those who do not read Greek.  Each row includes:  Line # -  Given Name, Surname - Father's Name -  Age - Occupation. I have translated these pages and made them available in both Greek and English, doing my best to transcribe the information accurately.  I would always recommend viewing the original scanned copies (link below).    - To the best of my knowledge, these lists include all Males who were eligible to vote i...

Thanks to John Vasilakos for posting this on Facebook. The article titled THE BEAUTIFUL VILLAGE OF ANAVRYTI was published by the GreekNewsOnline.com on March 20, 2006. Anavryti is a small beautiful village situated in the Greek region of Peloponnese, on a snowy area of Mt. Taygetos. . . . The article promotes tourism to the village. There is a section of the piece that is titled FOUNDED BY JEWS? In an article published in the Oxford Journals, John Launer writes the following about Anavryti: “I found out that the legend of the Greek mountain Jews was not nearly as improbable as it seemed. Indeed, the Apocrypha records contacts between the Maccabeans and the Spartans that go back to the third century BC. Over a millennium later, there were Jews living in Sparta—although a monk named Nikon tried to have them expelled, in exchange for helping the inhabitants to overcome the plague. A Jewish quarter survived in Mystra itself after the Turkish conquest, only to be...

Do you have Greek ancestors who were nomadic shepherds?   If you do, you will find the article SHEPHERDS, BRIGANDS, AND IRREGULARS IN NINETEENTH CENTURY GREECE very interesting.  It was written by John S. Koliopoulos and published in The Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora, No. 4, Pages 41-53, Winter 1981. You can read the entire article by following the link in the paragraph above.  Below you will find a short excerpt -  The real home for the pastoralist was the mountain, and the center of mainland Greek pastoralism was the Pindus mountain range, easily reached from the plains and valleys of Thessaly, Sterea Hellas (continental Greece), Epirus, and southern Macedonia. Mount Pindus and the adjacent mountains of southern Macedonia and Sterea Hellas, as well as the plains and coastal lowlands of Thessaly, Arta, Aitolia, Phthiotis, Katerini, and Thessaloniki, provided the suitable combination of summer and winter pastures for the flocks of sheep and goats of th...

FamilySearch.org has FREE databases that will allow you to view census forms for people listed as being born in Greece and residing in New York State. LINK TO 105,310 RECORDS Includes the following record sets: United States Census, 1850  United States Census, 1860 United States Census, 1870 United States Census, 1880 New York State Census, 1892 United States Census, 1900 New York State Census, 1905 United States Census, 1910 United States Census, 1920 United States Census, 1930 United States Census of Merchant Seamen, 1930 United States Census, 1940 Each year the census form is different and  FamilySearch.org does a great job of providing information for each year.  (Click on a name and then follow the link on the right hand side titled "About this collection".)

Links to the HISTORICAL ARCHIVES OF CRETE, General State Archives of Greece (GAK) Historical Archives of Crete - (Greek) Historical Archives of Crete - (English) You will be able to read about the history of the archives in Crete, contact and location information and a description of the archives and collections.  I have duplicated the portion describing the archives and collections below: The archives of the Historical Archive of Crete covering all Crete (hence the name of the Service), estimated at about 700,000 extremely important documents and other documents, from 1821 until today.   The material is sorted and recorded in material books, cards, catalogs and special indexes.   In more than 170 archival collections of the Service, including: - Archives of Cretan Revolutions - official correspondence 1821 - 1830, 1866 -1869, 1877-1878, 1895-1898, and the Movement Therisso 1905. - Private archival collections relating to various periods of Creta...