The search began in the early 1990s when Dimitris Katsambis, a resident of Adelaide since childhood, wanted to find out more about his grandfather who was born in Karitsa, a village in the Parnon Mountains in the southern Peloponnese.
It was a difficult enough quest in the days before the internet but, over the years, Mr Katsambis’ original inquiry has grown into a website that includes the stories of other families in village with more than 45,000 entries from descendants spread across the planet.
Those early efforts have evolved into the Family Trees of Southern Parnon website (https://karitsa.tribalpages.com/ and on Facebook) which was launched in 2002. The team now includes Mr Katasambis, Stelios Hagias (coordinator) based in Adelaide, Giannis Gavriil in Greece. Gregory Kontos in the US, as well as Thanasis Stamatopoulos and Nikolaos Kalkanis.
“The village is a community that is spread throughout the world. We are getting information about the village from the UK, USA, Germany, South Africa and Australia” said Mr Katsambis, a retired teacher. Along with his role on the website, he is also the editor of the blog Karitsioka Nea.
Mr Hagias, a retired research chemist, is the website coordinator whose family also came from Karitsa and . He looks after the family trees on the site. He also grows olives in his grove near Adelaide.
