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...

FYI -- The following is a message received through the MGSA (Modern Greek Studies Association) mailing list - May 28, 2014. DOWSING THE PAST:  MATERIALITIES OF CIVIL WAR MEMORIES While doing ethnographic research as part of the Koutroulou Magoula excavation, near the Neo Monastiri Village in Thessaly, anthropologist Konstantinos Kalantzis constantly encountered peoples’ narratives that linked archaeological endeavors to poignant war experiences of the 20 th  century. Two of his senior interlocutors in particular, Christos and Vassilis, frequently expressed the desire to visit the mountainous area where some of their family members spent time during the 1940’s as members of the communist guerilla forces. During the Greek Civil War some their siblings were killed in clashes with right-wing paramilitaries or forcibly migrated to the Soviet Union only to return some 30 years later. ‘Dowsing the Past’ is an ethnographic film that documents the journey undertaken by the two l...

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1903 - Ploughing with Buffaloes on the Great Fertile Plain of Thessaly, Northern Greece (click on image to enlarge)  Source: Library of Congress LC-USZ62-65912

1903 - Primitive Greece - Old Solid Wheel Carts Still Used on the Plain of Thessaly  (click on image to enlarge) Source: Library of Congress LC-USZ62-65913

Greek Irregular Volunteers on the Frontier, Thessaly, Greece - 1897  (click on image to enlarge) Source: Library of Congress Photograph Catalog

Three Candles:  Stories of Women in Exile As reported by the Greek News Agenda - "A documentary film is to shed light on one of the darkest pages in Modern Greek history:  Three Candles tells the story of thousands of women exiled to the small island of Trikeri, at Pagastikos Gulf. During the 1946-1949 Greek Civil War, thousands of citizens involved with the left-wing Democratic Army, even by mere association, were sent to concentration camps on isolated islands. Trikeri received thousands of exiled women, many of whom were with their children.  The documentary is an account of their struggle to survive, and their desperate efforts to turn an almost deserted island into a place of life and culture." Read more about this at the Greek News Agenda .