Being an archivist and genealogist / family historian, I am very used to dealing with old and fragile documents and conducting research for others. Researching and documenting my own family history, however, is another matter altogether. There is a different level of excitement when dates and documents are discovered.
I will use the occasion of my parent’s 65th wedding anniversary to illustrate my point. Researching my family history – beyond our migrant experience – occurred in 1971 and 1977 when I visited my village, Sianna, Rhodes, having migrated to Australia in 1954, as a six-year-old. Whilst exploring the family home I discovered an abandoned, nondescript, wooden trunk that had belonged to my late maternal grandfather who had passed away in 1968 at the ripe old age of 90. Inside the dusty trunk I discovered a plethora of ‘official documents’ and certificate butts from both the Church and Municipal Offices of the village.
The documents, dating from the 1890s to the mid 1960s, related to baptism certificates, marriages, deaths, and so forth. One document – which I suspect is my maternal grandmother’s birth certificate – is written in Ottoman script (pre 1912), and many are in Italian, dating from the Italian occupation (1912 – 1943). My grandfather was also the village priest – hence the existence of the trunk and its contents.
Original documents and photographs from that period are relatively scarce and often in a rather poor condition. I was surprised to observe how much of the material was in relatively good condition. Fascinating stuff. What has all of this to do with dates, documents, and dowry agreements? Everything. My parents, George, the son of Spiros and Despina Sarris, and Chrysanthe, daughter of Papa Panayiotis and Presbytera Evterpi Photakis, aged 25 and 21 respectively, were married on the 19 October 1947. And of course, Papa Panayiotis conducted the marriage service, which was held in the Church of Saint Panteleimon, in the village of Sianna, Rhodes. In the trunk were two original documents directly relating to my parent’s marriage.
Specifically, the Dowry Agreement (Proikosumfwnon) and the wedding service permission (issued by the Metropolitan of Rhodes). The structure, language and contents used in the agreement makes fascinating reading and will be the subject of a more in-depth article in the future. After all, it seems to me that the Proikosumfwnon, in essence, is the precursor to what we now refer to as a Prenuptial Agreement. In addition, a formal photograph of my parents as an engaged couple exists. But the real gem is a very small photograph, measuring no bigger than 6×4 cm, taken on their wedding day – there is no other photographic record of the marriage.
It was taken in front of the church just before the commencement of the wedding service. The bride flanked by her future father-in-law, partly obscured, and future sister-in-law, and the groom in separate circles, dance the traditional sousta. 65 years later they live in Adelaide, having migrated to Australia in the early ’50s. They have two sons Spiros married to Hristina, and Panayiotis married to Constantina; grandchildren: Anthea, George married to Anthoula, and Paul; great-grandchildren Spyridon and Ekaterina – who this year celebrates her first birthday on the same date 19 October.
These documents and photographs, together with expired passports, birth certificate extracts, form the documentary basis of our migrant family history. For my parents and our extended family these items are priceless. They give us a connection to the past and a treasure to pass on to our children and their children. For me the journey of discovery continues. There is more dust to be removed, more documents and dowry agreements to discover, more dates to record, more photographs to examine… * Spiros Sarris is an archivist and genealogist based in Adelaide, Australia.