A Brief History of the Balteas Family from Stavropigi of Exo Mani and Messinia, to Varousi in Lakonia

By Aris Poulimenakos, genealogist, and Nikos Balteas

Foreward by Donald George McPhail, Editor of Mani: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

Translation and notes by Mary Papoutsy

The original article appeared in Greek in the May-June issue
(Volume 10) of the magazine Mani: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. 
Posted to HCS with permission of the editor.

Continued from Page Seven


Dimitrios Panagioti Balteas

This son was born at Kalamata in 1851. In contrast to his brother Konstantinos, he was educated only at Kalamata.26 It can be subsequently inferred that his family had left Varousi and settled permanently in nearby Kalamata. He is not mentioned in any other document, nor does he appear to have left any offspring.

Georgios Nikolaou Balteas

We find him at the age of 27 in 1871, namely, that he was born in 1844. He was located later in analogous catalogues, as were, for example, his father Anagnostis and the others. It is quite likely that he was not still living in 1893. Some notarized papers agree with this notion (see Fig. 7 and Fig. 9)27, papers which his mother, Stathoula, the widow of Nikolaos or Anagnostis Balteas, had drawn up together with her daughters and without the council of any male members of her family. Especially supportive of this interpretation is the marriage-dowry contract of her daughter Vasiliki, dated 18 Nov 1893 (Fig. 5), when Georgios would have been 49 years old, but through all of which he was absent while her mother alone arranged for her dowry-contract.

The Fourth Balteas Generation

Vasileios Mihail Balteas

This individual was born in 1877.28 It appears that he was the first Balteas to move from Kalamata and settle in Athens. He moved together with his sister and mother, after they had sold their house at Kalamata in 1897 (Fig. 10). Economic difficulties and the absence of a dowry are more the causes of him leaving his sister unmarried. The same man, declaring his age as 35 in 1914, departed for America.29 He also left in Athens his brother Yianni Balteas.

Panagiotis Konstantinou Balteas

This person was born in 1899 at Kalamata.30 He followed in the steps of his cousin, Vasileios Balteas, and a short time later settled himself in Piraeus. But Panagiotis, in

26The authors had referred here to a specific, numbered document, but an image of it was not included in the article printed in the Mani magazine, so we are unable to reproduce it for HCS readers.

27See fn26 above.

28See fn26 above.

29Author Poulimenakos had consulted passenger ship records on the U.S.-based website of the Ellis Island Foundation. Although HCS has posted an article describing how to use this database for Hellenic genealogical research, "Immigrant Passenger Ship Records Now Online: Guide to Retrieving Records from the Ellis ISland Foundation Database," the search capabilities of the site have undergone changes which make research on Hellenic surnames virtually impossible. Correspondence to the foundation from the Hellenic Historical and Genealogical Association about these changes has not been acknowledged, although representatives of the National Genealogical Society have kindly examined the issue and offered to try to reach the foundation.

30See fn26 above.