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 Six

Stathoula Stergiou Papakyriakopoulou20, as we know from another notarized document (see Fig. 9), was still living in 1906.21

Fig. 9

The Third Balteas Generation22

Mihail Panagioti Balteas

The oldest of the children of Panagiotis. In accordance with written sources he was born in 1842 or 1844. His profession was "pneumatopoios"23 in Kalamata. He had already died in 1897, as we had also inferred from a notarized document (Fig. 10). The notary himself wrote:

". . .Vasiliki, the widow of Mih. Balteas, [of] the clan of Koliatsou. . ."

and her son ". . . Vasileios Mih. Balteas, claiming that he is of age. . .,"

are selling ". . . a house situated above Kalamai in the dimos of the

same name. . . ."

Fig. 10

Konstantinos Panagioti Balteas

This Balteas was born in 1848. He was the first [to be]educated according to official notarial archives. Educated at Kalamata in 1848, then at Stavropiki in 1849.24 His profession was "wine-seller." From his contracts (see Fig. 11) 25, it appears that he built some of his stores in Kalamata, but ended up in great economic difficulty (see especially Fig. 11), losing all of his property.



Fig. 11

20The "middle" name of widow Stathoula is not a real middle name, but is a "patronymic name," a possessive noun form derived from the given name of her father, Stergios. Her maiden name, of course, was Papakyriakopoulou, but readers should be aware that this proper name, too, is inflected, just as the patronymic, reflecting a possessive form. In contrast, male members of the family would use the surname spelling "Papakyriakopoulos," a form that doesn't show possession.

21The authors don't elaborate on details about the widow. Perhaps she furnished additional family history in the way of oral accounts, supporting some of the information gleaned from documentary evidence.

22In all successive generations, the men use a patronymic name where Westerners would use a "middle name." This proper name was inflected, showing possession. For additional explanation, see fn20 and fn12 above.

23The translator was unable to find a listing of this profession in the Lexicon of the New Hellenic Language by Professor Babiniotis; it is thus transcribed into English and not translated.

24In the Mani magazine article, the authors had referred readers here to specific documents, but images of these were not reproduced in the article. Thus we are unable to reproduce them for HCS viewers.

25See fn24 above.