2025, what a year!!

Yia sas!

Here we are at the end of another year, and what a big year it has been for us at Kytherian Genealogy Project.

2025 was the first time we were in Kythera at the same time, hard to believe as we are both such regular visitors to Kythera!  Whilst there, we had the immense pleasure of filming a series of informational videos about villages and places of interest in Kythera, but also culinary delights on offer in summer. We are very humbled by the great response and feedback we have received from people who have enjoyed viewing them and are learning facts about villages linked to their family history. As requested, we intend to film more videos in the coming year. If you have missed viewing them or want to recap, you can find them on our resources page here.

We have been extremely busy with researching newly released documents from the National Archives of Australia, as well as continuing with completing and adding to other databases on our resources page which we hope are assisting people with their research.

Below is a list of what has been added in 2025: -

·      Australian Newspaper Naturalisation Announcements

·      Seafarers Qualifications

·      Video files

·      Uploaded Pandokratoras Church registers into our church register BDM databases.

This now completes our inaugural research project of creating a searchable English database of all church registry records of Kythera from the late 1600s to 1865, containing over 50,000 records.

·      Kytherian Newspaper Social News for 1958-1961

·      Faces of Australian Immigrants        

·      Signatures of Australian Immigrants

Whilst in Kythera, we visited the wonderful Renata and her colleague Lazaro at the Kytherian Local Archives on several occasions. We learnt there have been many changes to the access of information at the Kytherian Local Archives now that the records fall under the direct control of the Greek State Archives. For a number of years, we have been attempting to find out when the notary records will be completely loaded onto the GAK website, as all that is visible are headings, and when all other records will be digitised and loaded up. We have learnt that there are many hurdles to overcome and upload of new documents is still a few years away.

Another hurdle we and others researching their Kytherian family trees now face is the new more restrictive practices of retrieving birth, death and marriage records from the Kytherian Municipal Council. If information is sought, one now needs to make an appointment, send an email with the details sought, confirm your identity with proof of ID and relationship with the person on the certificate. We are fortunate that Amalia spent hours retrieving copies of all the Kytherian certificates available through the Mormon Church over a decade ago.  However, there may be many records held by the Municipality that were not photographed by the Mormans in 1986.

Once again, this year we compiled dozens of family trees for people of Kytherian descent from all over the world. We are keeping Kytherians connected globally through our research. Speaking of global Kytherians, we were once again honoured to present at Global Zoom sessions organised by our friend at the Kytherian Society of California (KSOCA), Vikki Fraoli. These forums are a wonderful interactive way to connect with the Kytherian diaspora. We look forward to attending another in the new year.

We have a few plans for 2026 and will keep you informed through our socials.

Thanks to our contributors and those that interact and comment on our work and social media posts. We believe we have a close community that we love and hope it continues to grow.

We both wish you and your families a happy and safe Christmas and a very happy and healthy 2026.

Amalia and Kalie