Ithacan Family Tree
Tracing your ancestors’ stories
The Ithacan Family Tree initiative has one goal: to help you trace your family history and uncover the past.
We are helping to make available the rich documentary sources held in Ithaca and elsewhere, and providing you with the best tools to record your discoveries.
An online family tree
Our vision is to create a comprehensive online family tree available to all Ithacans which can be used as a social history resource for generations to come. Launching in early 2024, the project is designed to be collaborative, giving IHS members the opportunity to be actively involved in documenting our history and strengthening our sense of identity and community.
Members can participate in the project in two ways:
Explore and curate their own family history and build their individual family trees.
Collaborate with the IHS committee to combine their individual tree to help grow the single Ithacan family tree.
How you can participate
The IHS is partnering with MyHeritage to provide an online platform where members can explore their family history. There are some useful features including a family tree builder, easy-to-use Greek language setting, ability to print customised family tree posters, and the largest European historical records database in the world.
Learn more about MyHeritage here.
Collaboration with MyHeritage
Learn more
Watch a talk by Athena Connock about our family history initiative (Held Sunday, 3 March 2024, Ithaca House, Melbourne)
Finding the right sources
Our Ithacan Family Tree initiative is working with historians and archivists to provide key resources for your research.
Key published demographic sources
The libro d’oro of 1803
See below, right for a feature on this source.
The Census of Ithaca in 1807
This invaluable source from the Archive of Corfu was published by Dr Ioanna Athanasopoulou in 2019, and the author has kindly allowed us to provide it to you open access. The introduction is in Greek, and the census data in Italian.
The church register from Anogi (1749-1922)
The register of the Church of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin Mary from Anogi is a manuscript held in the Archive of Ithaca. The entire register was transcribed and published by Vasiliki Angelopoulou and Stefanos Gerontis in 2014. Containing detailed records of more than 3,500 baptisms, marriages and funerals in the village of Anogi between 1749 and 1922, this is an invaluable tool for research. The edition contains the records in both Greek and Latin characters.
Listen to our guest speaker Dr Ioanna Athanasopoulou speak about the Census of Ithaca in 1807.
Documents from archives
While the published sources above are a great starting point, most of the documents relevant to your family history are held in archives around the world.
The richest records for Ithacans are, of course, held at the historical archive in Ithaca. Read more about the various types of documents here, and reach out to us for help.
If you are unsure about how to begin, get in contact with us below.
The ‘libro d’oro’ of 1803
As a small island with relatively limited class distinctions, Ithaca did not have a nobility during three centuries of Venetian rule. However in 1803 the new constitution of the post-Venetian ‘Republic of the Seven Islands’ (Ἑπτάνησος Πολιτεία / Repubblica Settinsulare / Septinsular Republic) established a restricted class of electors on each island, admitted for having satisfied strict economic criteria.
The Ithacan libro d’oro of 1803 is the only known surviving manuscript of its type, and was published as
Griva, E. Το Libro d’Oro της Ιθάκης (1803). Argostoli: Εταιρεία Κεφαλληνιακών Ίστορικων Ερευνών, 1997.
The work is available in our library. You can download a scan of the alphabetised list of registered names here (searchable PDF).
The ‘Secret Census’ of Greeks in Australia (1916)
The Australian government secretly collated information on Greeks resident in the country in 1916, when Greece was considered at risk of siding with the Axis powers in WWI. Read more about the census here.
The ‘secret census’ is, coincidentally, a useful genealogical resource. Many Ithacan names are listed.
We have made the digitised files easily accessible for you here, courtesy of the historian Yianni Cartledge.
Download the records by state below:
Victoria New South Wales (File 1, File 2)
South Australia (File 1, File 2) Tasmania Western Australia
Australian migration sources
If you are seeking to retrace your family’s migration story to Australia, there are many easily available digitised archival sources available through the National Archives of Australia’s RecordSearch. Read a guide here.
The National Library of Australia also holds important resources and has a useful guide.
Useful Australian records are surveyed by familysearch.org with links to the sources.
For immigration records, click here. For naturalisation records, click here.
Migration beyond Australia
We are actively working to compile resources beyond Australia, from South Africa to the USA. Stay tuned for updates!
Share your resources with us
Help us expand our genealogical resources by getting in touch with us if you have sources to share. Your experience researching family history can be very valuable to others too.
Stay tuned
We are building this page to provide you with even more resources and guides on how to trace your ancestors’ stories.
We will announce updates via our newsletter. Sign up here.
We can help you
Are you finding it difficult to use the sources?
Have you hit a roadblock in your research?
Do you need help reading the Greek or Italian documents which contain information about your ancestors?
Our advice is always free
All our research assistance will always be free, and available to all. If you wish to support us, we appreciate all donations, which allow us to maintain our reach and activities.
You can support us here.