Finding your Greek ancestors

First, find the village, its Greek name and its municipality

Greek records are kept by the municipality (dimos, δήμος): its registry office holds the civil records, and its municipal register lists the families who belong to it. Before you write anywhere you need the village's name in Greek, any former name, and the municipality it belongs to today.

Greek letters, Latin spellings. Greek records are written in the Greek alphabet, so a name you know from an English document is only one of several possible spellings. Today Greek passports write names according to the ELOT 743 standard (ISO 843); older documents abroad often used other spellings. Search Greek databases with the Greek form of the name.

Renamed villages. About 5,000 Greek towns and villages were renamed once or more between 1831 and 2011. The Institute of Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation has put them in a free database, Settlement renames in Greece (in Greek). You can browse it alphabetically, by date and by area; its table gives the old name, the new name and the Government Gazette (Φ.Ε.Κ.) reference. Type names with their Greek accents: the site says searches need them.

A country that grew. When your ancestor was born, the village may not yet have been in Greece. The modern Greek state emerged in 1830; other regions joined later:

Before those dates a record may name the Ottoman Empire, Turkey, Britain or Italy rather than Greece. Many Greeks also lived in Asia Minor, Thrace and Pontus: after the defeat of August 1922, the Lausanne settlement of 1923 enforced a compulsory exchange of populations with Turkey. The General State Archives' Digital Archives Portal for 1922 maps records of the refugees' flight, settlement and compensation, with browsing by person and by place.

Village or municipality. Every municipality is its own registry district, but municipalities have been merged several times. The Kallikratis law of 2010 created 325 new municipalities; the old municipalities and communities became municipal units and local communities inside them. A village's records are now usually with the municipality it belongs to today, so find that name before you write.

The municipal register (dimotologio) and the male register

Two municipal registers, older than the civil registry, are the backbone of Greek family research.

The municipal register (dimotologio, δημοτολόγιο). Every municipality and community keeps one. People are entered by family, each family under its own number (the family record, oikogeneiaki merida). The entry gives each member's surname and given name, the parents' names, the date and place of birth, residence, religion and citizenship. Being on it proves that a person is a citizen (dimotis) of that municipality, and it is the basis of the family status certificate. FamilySearch notes that where these registers survive they start by at least 1887, and that they were kept current with marriages, deaths and emigration, recording the date and reason a person was taken off the list.

The male register (mitroo arrenon, μητρώο αρρένων). Every municipality and community keeps a male register, compiled by year of birth, of all male Greek citizens, including those living abroad; a copy goes to the regional authority and the military recruitment office. FamilySearch says communities began keeping these registers when Greece became independent, and that they list each boy's name, parents' names, year and place of birth, and residence. Because all male Greek citizens had to be registered, including those living abroad, an emigrant may still appear in his village's register.

Certificates are now issued from a national information system, the Citizens' Register (Mitroo Politon), created by Law 4483/2017. FamilySearch adds that the local branches of the General State Archives have copies of male registers and town registers for some areas.

Civil registry (lixiarcheio) since 1925

Greece's civil registry office (lixiarcheio, ληξιαρχείο) records births, marriages and deaths. FamilySearch dates its creation to 1925 and notes that it was not working everywhere in Greece until 1931. For earlier events, use the municipal registers and the parish books.

• One registry per municipality. Under Law 344/1976 each municipality and community is its own registry district, and the mayor is the registrar.
• Where the event happened. Birth, marriage and death records are drawn up in the district where the event took place, so ask the registry of the place of the event, not of residence.
• Online only for recent records. Records drawn up since 8 May 2013 are in the electronic system and can be issued at once. Older records are in paper books at the registry office; they appear online only if they were changed later or if an extract was issued from 2018 on.
• A 2026 reform. Law 5321/2026 moves the civil registry into the Citizens' Register system; the Ministry of the Interior's circular of 10 August 2026 confirms that registrars issue copies (antigrafa) and extracts (apospasmata) of civil records.

Who may have a copy. Copies and extracts are free. The Ministry's procedure register (Mitos) says a death record extract is issued to the closest relatives, and that a request from any applicant is met without having to justify a legal interest, as far as the record contains no personal data of living people (such data must be removed). A marriage record is issued to either spouse and to anyone who proves a legal interest; a birth record to the person concerned, or to someone holding their authorization.

For Thessaloniki, FamilySearch lists filmed civil registration for 1914 to 1941; see its Greece Civil Registration page.

Certificates: gov.gr, municipalities and consulates

Greece issues most certificates online through gov.gr, but only to people who can log in with personal Taxisnet codes, the Greek tax portal credentials.

• Family status certificate (pistopoiitiko oikogeneiakis katastasis): issued from the municipal register, free, to adult Greek citizens with a regular entry in a municipality's register; a third party must have a legal interest. The municipality has 10 days to issue it, and it is valid for six months. Online through gov.gr (Taxisnet needed), or at a municipality or a Citizen Service Centre (KEP). Greek public bodies no longer ask citizens for it.
• Birth record extract on gov.gr: only for yourself or your minor children, and issued at once only for records drawn up from 8 May 2013. gov.gr birth record service.

From abroad. Municipalities serve Greek citizens living abroad through the Greek consulates of the country where they live: the Glyfada municipality, for example, says family status certificates for them go through the consular authorities. Mitos lists consulates and the myConsulLive video service among the places where a death record extract can be requested. If you are not a Greek citizen and have no Taxisnet codes, write directly to the municipality (see below).

A third party in Greece. Someone in Greece can apply for you with an authorization whose signature is certified by a Citizen Service Centre (KEP) or a public authority; gov.gr also issues electronic authorizations.

Before the civil registry: Orthodox parish books

Before the civil registry, baptisms, marriages and burials were recorded by the Orthodox Church. FamilySearch notes that some Greek church records begin in the 16th century, though most begin in the late 1600s and early 1700s, and that registers are available until about 1940.

• Baptisms give the child's and parents' names, the godparents and the dates.
• Marriages give the date and place, the couple's names and their fathers' names.
• Burials were recorded by the priest who held the funeral.

Where they are. Most church registers are still kept by the parish (enoria). Marriage records especially are often in the offices of the diocese (Ieri Mitropoli, metropolis). Some pre-1900 records may be in the General State Archives. FamilySearch notes that the “New Lands” (the regions gained in 1912 to 1913), Crete and the Dodecanese come under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, not the Church of Greece. The Family History Library has filmed some registers of Corfu, Kefalonia and Lefkada.

FamilySearch's Greece Church Records page has a form letter in Greek for writing to a diocese.

The General State Archives and what is online

The General State Archives (Genika Archeia tou Kratous, GAK) collect public records through branches across the country. FamilySearch notes that the branches collect records of the area they serve and hold copies of male registers, town registers and school records, as well as church and notarial records.

• @rcheiomnimon (English) is the GAK's free portal: you can browse its collections, search the archival descriptions and view the digitised pages, seven million of them. It lists the archives of 32 prefectures (from Aitoloakarnania to Chios) and the Historical Archives of Epirus, Crete and Macedonia. Search by the Greek name of the village or the old municipality.
• The Digital Archives Portal for 1922 gathers more than 500 archives and collections from some 60 institutions on the Asia Minor Catastrophe and the settlement of the refugees.
• The GAK's main website (portal.gak.gr) showed only a maintenance notice in October 2026, with links to these portals and the reading room's contact (anagnostirio@gak.gr).

FamilySearch also lists a filmed town register with indexes for Nauplion (1800 to 1967) and the Thessaloniki civil registration (1914 to 1941). Its Greece Online Genealogy Records page lists further indexes of male registers, electoral rolls and refugee registers, mostly on paid commercial sites.

Emigrants: where they went and how they were counted

FamilySearch notes that most people leaving Greece in the 19th and 20th centuries went to the United States, Egypt and Australia, that the two main ports of departure were Piraeus and Patras, and that emigration to the United States nearly stopped after 1924, when restrictive quotas were applied; after that most went to Australia, Canada or South Africa. Records of passports and permissions to emigrate are kept in Athens and Nauplion, but no passenger lists from Greece have been filmed.

The official tables shown on this site's map count:

Figures: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Yearbook of Immigration Statistics 2019, table 2 (country of origin before 1906, of last residence from 1906); Australian Government, Department of Home Affairs, Historical Migration Statistics (November 2025); Statistics Canada, table 17-10-0010-01 (archived); Historical Statistics of Switzerland online, table B.21; Quebec immigration ministry (MIFI), tables of permanent immigration. Each country uses its own definitions: compare with care.

Start with the arrival record. On New York passenger lists, FamilySearch notes, the last permanent residence in Greece is listed with the name and address of a relative left behind; naturalization papers give the birthplace and last residence.

Writing to the municipality or the parish

Write to the municipality (dimos) the village belongs to today, addressed to its registry office (lixiarcheio) and its municipal register department (tmima dimotologiou). For an event after the civil registry began (1925, everywhere by 1931), ask for a copy (antigrafo) of the birth, marriage or death record (lixiarchiki praxi) from the registry of the place where it happened; for an ancestor born earlier, ask for an extract of the family record in the municipal register and of the entry in the male register. Give the full name in Greek if you can, the approximate year, the parents' names and the village, and say you are a descendant who can document the relationship. Copies of civil records are free, and a death record can be given to any applicant as far as it holds no data on living people. If you are a Greek citizen living abroad, the Greek consulate can obtain family status certificates for you. For baptisms and marriages before the registry, write to the parish priest or the diocese (Ieri Mitropoli). Write your letter in Greek with our free generator.

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