Marriage records are a precious source of information in genealogy research. They usually offer a wealth of names (the groom’s, the bride’s, their parents’) as well as the age(s) of the couple, their place(s) of birth and residence, occupations etc. At the same time, they create a terminus post quem, for one to look for the couple’s children’s births. In Greek genealogy research, marriage records are equally precious, nevertheless, they are rare.
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Civil marriage records
In Greece, civil marriage records started to be systematically kept by the State only in 1925, upon the re-organization of the Registry Offices (Lixiarcheio, Ληξιαρχείο) of Municipalities. Such records are kept at Town Halls and include lots of valuable information: when, where, and who informed the Registry Office about the marriage; the names, surnames, and ages of both the groom and the bride; their parents’ names. While “civil marriage records after 1925” is the rule, there are some fortunate exceptions, in those cases where the Municipality has offered its Registry Office Archives to the local General State Archives. Such is the case of Corfu, Kefalonia, Lefkada, Samos and a few other places around Greece. In Athens and Thessaloniki, Town Halls have older -though not necessarily complete- records, however, these are not open to researchers. The marriage records of Corfu are available on MyHeritage, while those of Lefkada are available on Greek Ancestry.
Church marriage records
For the years before 1925, the main keeper of marriage records was the Greek Orthodox Church. As religious marriage was the only option in Greece until 1982, church marriage records are of great importance even for the years after 1925. There are two categories of church vital records: those kept by a parish priest and those kept by a Metropolis/Diocese.
Parish church records
A parish priest records the marriages he conducts in his parish but also in smaller neighboring settlements which do not have a priest of their own. Because the records were kept by the local priest, they were also passed down from one priest to the next, which in many cases caused loss or destruction of records. In most cases, church marriage records start from the last decades of the 19th century or from the first of the 20th century. These records do not come in the form of certificates, but rather in that of indexes. Index templates were provided by the central Church to ensure that parish church books followed a specific structure. Such a marriage record kept by a priest may include the following information: the names of the spouses, their ages, their parents’ names (in most cases, the fathers’ names only), the date and place of the marriage, the name of the priest, the names of the bestmen (koumparoi), and the marriage license number.
Metropolis church records
The mention of marriage licenses in the previous paragraph takes us to the other and most valuable source of marriage information, the Metropolis/Diocese. Every time an Orthodox couple was to get married, they were required to obtain the local Bishop’s approval. The priest of their parish would write a petition to the Bishop which included information about the couple. The Bishop would reply by giving his permission and issuing a license for the marriage to take place. This process ensured the marriage was legitimate and that the future husband and wife were not closely related to each other.
A Metropolis marriage records collection typically consists of 1) an index of marriage licenses and 2) the license documentation. Generally, indexes follow a specific structure, and usually include the following information: the marriage date, the number and date of the marriage license; the name, surname, age, and residence of the groom and the bride, the names of their fathers, whether it was each spouse’s first, second or third marriage, the names of the best man and maid of honor, the church where the marriage was held, the name of the priest. On the other hand, the information provided by license documentation varies. Apart from the information already listed in the index, this documentation may also include additional details about the couple and their families, as well as certificates. Parish church vital records can be found at the local church or at the priest’s house, while marriage licenses are found at the local Metropolis. A large digitization program sponsored and hosted by MyHeritage, organized by Gregory Kontos of Greek Ancestry and operated by Carol Kostakos Petranek, has secured the preservation of the entire marriage collection (1835-1935) of the Metropolis of Monemvasia and Sparta.
Explore more about Marriage records in Greece
- Greece, Corfu Vital Records, 1841-1932 record collection at MyHeritage
- Greece, Sparta Marriages 1835-1935 record collection at MyHeritage
- MyHeritage Adds Three Historical Record Collections From Greece on the MyHeritage blog
- Greece’s Top 5 Types of Genealogy Records webinar by Gregory Kontos at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- An Introduction to Tracing your Greek Ancestry webinar by Gregory Kontos at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- Greek Ancestry