When researching the history of a family, it is extremely important to record and analyze the oral narratives passed down within the family, as well as to scan written records in archives where the family may have been involved. Because while oral narratives may lose or change their details over time, written records provide us with more concrete data. However, it is not always possible to find a family's records in every geography or within a certain time period. While in some countries families can go back to the distant past while researching their history, this becomes a little more difficult in multinational geographies that have seen wars, dealt with population exchanges, and have emigrated and emigrated.
Records in Anthemion Archives:
When we first started the 2mi3museum project, we recorded our family's oral narratives and accepted most of the information in these narratives as true. However, since we believed that this information should be confirmed with written records, we started scanning the archives. Frankly, we have not been able to find many records in 6 years, we have been able to confirm some of the oral narratives from newspaper advertisements, commercial yearbooks, telephone directories and old maps. Just because we could not reach enough written sources did not mean that these sources did not exist. Because archiving possible records and making them available to the public is a matter that takes time and requires investment, and there are organizations operating in these areas. An archive that does not exist today may one day be created by a university, a non-governmental organization or an individual, or it may suddenly appear in state archives. Let's give you an example: Two documents about the Sanzoni family, which appeared only as titles in 2019, were found in the archives as readable in 2020. This means that archives should be constantly scanned and documents that were previously searched but not found should be searched again at regular intervals.
Registre Pour l’Enregistrement des Grecs Non-Echangeables :
Now let's get to our main topic and why we started this article like this. Recently, a relative of ours in Greece shared a document with us with great excitement. This document contained passport photos of the Vafiadis family and information such as place and date of birth. When we looked at the document, we were excited because it was the first time we saw a second photo of our grandfather's grandfather. The document was a list and its title was written in French; 'Registre Pour l’Enregistrement des Grecs Non-Echangeables'. When we translated the document title into Turkish, we learned that it was a list of those exempt from the Turkish-Greek Population Exchange. Since we already knew that our family was exempt from the population exchange, our excitement subsided for a moment, but then we realized that we could learn unknown photographs, places of birth and dates of birth from this document. That's why we started scanning all the surnames in the family: Vafiadis, Akasi, Koskeri, Çakıroğlu... This scan took us three days. Because the documents were filled in manually and scanned and uploaded to the archive in visual format. In other words, we did not have the luxury of typing the name in the search field and pressing the search button; We had to go through hundreds of pages one by one. By the way, let's point out; The name of the archive is Anthemion. The web address is: https://anthemion.phs.uoa.gr/index.php/en/. You can easily become a member after stating your reason for research. But as we said, you may have to spend days researching a name.
Vafiadis Family in the Lists:
As a result of our long research, we were able to trace Vafiadis, Akasi and Çakıroğlu in documents recorded between 1927-1933. In the list of the Vafiadis family, Stavros Vafiadis himself, his wife Froso, his son Hurmuzios and his daughter Alexandra were recorded, but their other children were not. Stavros and Froso had nine children, three of whom died in infancy, so why were the remaining four children not on the list? It doesn't seem possible to find out the reason. We were happy to see a photo of Stavros Vafiadis that we had never seen before, in the list where the Vafiadis family was registered. However, in the information about Stavros, his date of birth and place of birth contradicted the family narratives. Stavros Vafiadis, whom we actually know as being born on Chios Island in 1871, appeared to be born in Istanbul in 1867 in these records.
Registre Pour l’Enregistrement des Grecs Non-Echangeables - Vafiadis
By the way, we would like to point out that Stavros Vafiadis appears to be born in 1871 in the records of the Republic of Türkiye. Frankly, we think that the difference this year is due to the difference in the Hijri Gregorian calendar. However, we cannot be sure whether the birthplace information was Stavros' declaration or whether it was recorded this way because he came to Istanbul at a very young age and without family. After all, what we know from family narratives is that Stavros Vafiadis came to Istanbul from Chios Island alone, as a child, in the 1880s. The reason for coming alone in the 1880s was obviously the destruction of the village of Tholopotami, known as his birthplace, in the Chios Island earthquake.
Cakiroglu Family in the Lists:
Another person whose traces we found in the Anthemion archives and who surprised us was Nikolas from the Çakıroglu family. We thought that the father of Sofia Çakıroglu, who was born in Sarıyer, might have been born in Istanbul in the 1870s. But we saw in the documents that Nikolas Çakıroglu was born in Belgrade in 1868.
Registre Pour l’Enregistrement des Grecs Non-Echangeables - Cakiroglu
Unfortunately, we do not know when, with whom and for what reason he came to Istanbul. But we were very happy to obtain such information about this family member. It turns out that our family members, who have been living in Istanbul for 144 years, since the 1880s, came here from many different points. So what brought Nikolas from Belgrade to Istanbul? Did he come with his family, or did he hear the reputation of Istanbul at an older age in the 1890s and come with dreams? Maybe we will find these details in completely different archives.
Registre Pour l’Enregistrement des Grecs Non-Echangeables - Akasi
According to the records in the archive, there was no document different from what we know about the Akasi family. But we were very happy to see different passport photographs of family members in these documents. The birthplace of these family members was also stated as Chios Island.
As we mentioned at the beginning of our article, it is extremely important to research written sources to learn the history of a family. However, it is not very easy to access and scan these written sources. Long efforts do not always make you happy, sometimes you reach information you already know, sometimes you cannot reach any information. But the excitement of working to find a clue is worth a lot. Our advice, especially to our Greek visitors, is that they should definitely enter the link we have shared. Who knows, maybe they will learn a detail they never knew about their family.
Written by: 2mi3, October 2024
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