The 1821 Anniversary Celebration--Psara, its Orphans and the rare island ledger

 

You might know that I've been working on the story of the first Boston Greeks for a dozen years now 

[here's the study: http://mparaschos.com/Boston_Greeks/Cover.html]

but you may not know that several of the people I've found happened to be 1821 Revolution orphans who came to America and excelled. This year's 200th anniversary of Greece's independence war has generated a lot of interest in those children and a history professor of Salonika's Aristotle university asked to use my material and got funding in Greece for a documentary on those children. In a couple of months ERT will  send a production team to tape interviews with the descendants of those children. 

Because of my interest in Psara and the two orphans I've covered (Garafilia Mihalbei/Γαρυφαλλιά Μιχάλμπεη and George Sirian/Γεώργιος Σαρηγιάννης), I was just sent by the island's former mayor a digitized version of the financial ledger of Psara from 1820 to 1823. It was a fascinating document, which moved me, not only because of the language used to describe taxes, contributions and expenditures but also because of the names of the people involved, many heroes of the Revolution. 

I wanted to share this εθνικό κειμήλιο (national heirloom) with all the parea members and the orphans'  descendants I've found. So I created this site and tried to include as many of the names we might recognize as I could. I marked as many as I could, but I'm sure you'd recognize and add others. Check out the presence of Σαρηγιάννης, Μιχάλμπεη, Ζαννής, Μυτάρας, Κανάρης, Παπανικολής, Βαρβάκης,  κλπ. 

Let me know of any omissions or errors. 

Here's the site: https://manoparas.wixsite.com/psara

Enjoy.

Manolis