Friday, July 24, 2015

Eureka -- thanks to an Orfeos newspaper blurb and a missing photograph!

As previously posted, I had visited Neos Skopos in Northern Greece on 6/21 in my quest to learn something more about my grandfather, Xanthoulis Xanthopoulos -- a man from Skopos, Turkey, that we know next to nothing about before he married Paraskevoula Koutsoukis in Naousa circa 1916...except the names of his parents, Efstathios and Kokosill (as noted on his 1941 death certificate). No one I spoke with that day knew anyone who might be related to me. And I was told there was no K name Kokosill in the Skopos tradition, but there was a name Kokony. 

I was on a mission to find at least one Xanthopoulos relative on this trip. So my new and now perplexed Neos Skopos friends offered to include a blurb about my search w/my cellphone# in their "Syllogos Orfeos" quarterly newspaper, which was just about to be printed... 

20 days later and on the night before I left Thessaloniki, I spoke with someone who had read the newspaper and given me a call. Her maiden name was Eleni Xanthopoulou, her grandparents were named Efstathios and Kokkony...and she remembers being told that her Yiayia would go to Naousa to visit relatives.  Eureka!

Eleni said that somewhere she had a photograph of four people that was received with a box of clothes many years ago, and she was sure that I was in that photograph. Out-of-the-blue she referenced Stockton, California. I was stunned!

This was the first person on the Papou Xanthoulis Xanthopoulos side of our Family Tree that I have ever located -- made possible because the "Syllogos Orfeos" in Neos Skopos was kind enough to publicize my quest. And then Eleni, who lives in Serres, happened to see that notice. We did not have time to meet in person this trip, but we have an exciting connection and something to build on.
 
Now to find that photograph...

NOTE: If you have queries about Skopos relatives you can write to Theodoros Voyiaris, President of Orfeos in Neos Skopos, Serron, Greece T.K. 62100...or call him at 306949535354. Good luck!

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