July 2004

Kytherian Trees
I received an email in June from Telemachos Combis in Athens. It contained a computer file which is perhaps the most important single entry yet destined for the our website. Realising its complexity and pricelessness, I sent it onto some of the most gifted software engineers in Europe who also happen to be the programmers of Kythera-Family.net. They had to modify the website so it could successfully import the file, which contained English and Greek characters. After the longest upload in Kythera-Family.net history, the job was complete. The precious file contained a 570-person strong family tree going back more than three centuries. If we assume that over the last couple of centuries the average Kytherian family had 4 children who had children themselves, and a 30 year generation turnover, then each of the few dozen people in that one family tree born before 1800 had a total of, wait for it, sixteen thousand, three hundred and eighty-four descendants.

I know that there are a few seasoned gamblers out there in the Kytherian community. I wonder how many of them would care to bet that they are not related to anyone in Telemachos Combis’ family tree? And Telemachos’ tree is by no means the only one on our website. 1320 family tree entries have been submitted so far.

So now there is one HUGE family tree on the site. In addition to the Combis names in the tree, there are dozens more, including Logothetis, Panaretos, Mavromatis, Andronicos, Comnenos, Sofios, Aronis, Theodorakaki, Sougianni, Gavrilis, Prineas, Georgopoulos, Coucoulis, Calopedis, Casimatis, Pantelis, Theodorakaki, Simos, Panagiotopoulos, Batagios, Caneli, Moulos... and they are just the ones born before 1850. By the way, Telemachos also has his own beautiful website with the tree as well as many more pictures and information. It can be viewed at www.tilemachos.com (sic).

Although I entrusted Telemachos’ tree to our programmers for submission, the system is actually conceived to allow the average suburban person of Kytherian descent with little or no previous internet experience, to build their very own family tree online, on the site, for the whole world to enjoy. As mentioned in a previous article, only those in the tree who are already deceased are displayed to the general public - only the submitter can see them when they are logged on with their password. That way complete family trees can be submitted without compromising the privacy of living members of the family.

Are there any more excuses out there for not submitting your own family trees? Are you really going to let the Combis from Logothetianika get all the limelight? By putting your relatives on the site - even if you can only go back to your grandparents - you too will help piece together the fascinating human jigsaw puzzle of our ancestry.

Many thanks to all submitters, but here a special dedication this month to the family tree authors out there: Anna Avgoustou, Ellena Galtos, Phil Jorritsma, Peter Tzannes, Spiro Coolentianos, Eleni Malanos, Koula Patty, Vi Malos, Paul Coroneos, Vicki Gesouras, George Megas, Wayne Kanelis, Basil Macree, Archie Poulos, Kalie Zervos, George Stamatakos, Lindsay Johnstone, Peter Tsicalas, Judith Lorantos, Michael Mattys and Mr. Stratigos.

James Prineas, Website Team Leader Europe