IDTG

With the instrumental help of the Very Reverend Father Patriarchal Vicar Archimandrite Nikodimos Priangelos of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, of the Greek Orthodox church in Cairo, Egypt I was able to get information about my paternal grandfather’s baptism and birth.

According to the entry in the church’s records:

Kimon Andreou, son of Evangelos Andreou of Volos and Orthodoxia Stavrinou of Cyprus, born on June 22 1887 in Cairo and baptised in the holy church of St. Nicholas in Cairo on December 16, 1887 by the Reverend Father David and with Maria Stavrinou as the godmother

Code: 1 Page: 77 Number: 220

Coincidentally, my father got some information and it appears that Orthodoxia Stavrinou was from Larnaca, Cyprus. However, I do not know more about her such as her birth year or her parents.

It appears that the Stavrinou family migrated to Greece at some point as cousins of my father still live in Athens though contact is very sparse these days.

If and when I receive copies of any documents I’ll get them posted here.

In addition to the above, there is a document from the municipality of Athens listing information about my grandparents and specifically about my grandfather’s important life events. Unfortunately, his birth date differs from what is in the records of the church in Cairo.

As mentioned above, the church in Cairo states that my grandfather was born in 1887 but the document from the municipality of Athens states 1889. A difference of two years, which is larger than the 13 days of the Julian vs. Gregorian calendars (the latter being adopted in Greece in 1927). I tend to trust the church records more (as it regards the birth date), as they were contemporary, rather than the Athenian ones as those were recorded at a much later date. Also going against the city of Athens is the total lack of any information on his parents or place of birth. However, I do trust those records for the other dates as they all occured in Athens.

According to the records of the city of Athens:

• My grandmother, Athena Giakoumelos, was born in 1899.
• My grandmother’s parents were Spyridon and Maria Giakoumelos.
• My grandparents were married on August 25, 1913.
• My grandfather died in Athens on February 15, 1944

In the last entry I spoke of the founder of my mother’s paternal lineage in Chile, Juan Martínez de Vergara. I’ll get back to that lineage in future posts but today will move to my father’s side, the Andreou line.

Though I don’t have much information on this line what I do have tells a very interesting story.

My father was born in 1929 in the neighborhood of Colonos in Athens, Greece. He was the seventh of eight children of whom the four eldest and the most youngest were born in São Paolo, Brazil. The first child was born in 1916 and the youngest in 1935.

Just this, is an interesting story. Take a look at the map to see where the two countries are in relation to each other and think about the time period.

Among these children, a great artist arose that was honored with the French Legion of Honor and the Order of Arts and Letters, Constantine Andreou.

My grandfather was named Kimon Andreou, just like me, and was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1889 to a Greek couple who had recently emigrated there from central Greece.

The story, as it has been related to me, is that my grandfather first traveled to Brazil sometime in around 1910. He returned briefly to Greece where, through an arranged marriage, he wed my grandmother and sailed back to Brazil settling with his young bride in São Paolo.

After about a decade in Brazil, the family of now six returns to Greece. The last four children were now born in Greece.

If anybody’s keeping track, that’s 6 transatlantic trips and 6 moves with an ever growing family in the period of 1910 to 1937, a time when most never left their village.

Why all this back and forth half way across the world in such a short period of time? I don’t know but, I intend to find out….

The family that was fortunate enough to watch the Great War (or WW1) from Brazil and out of the theatre of war was not so lucky with the second world war. The family at this time was in the Kypriadou neighborhood of Athens and survived through the Nazi occupation of Greece.

The stories told of German atrocities, the famine and illnesses, the people dying in the streets and what they had to do to survive are enthralling and hair raising.

In 1944, my grandfather dies leaving my grandmother a widow with a seven year old daughter and a couple of teenage sons. Luckily, the oldest children were adults and were able to contribute to the survivival of the family.

During the Nazi occupation, all the boys in the family joined the Greek resistance and contributed in any way they could. My father was in his early teens and was already a talented sapper rigging railroads and bridges with explosives to sever the Nazi supply routes.

After the war, the family split with different children migrating to different countries to escape war torn Greece and try to start a new life. The eldest male, Constantine, went to France on an art scholarship to begin a long and illustrious career attaining worldwide fame. Others returned to Brazil once again while others stayed in Greece for a few more years until those too went to Brazil.

The Andreou family managed to avoid the Greek civil war and by 1950 were all, minus Constantine, in Brazil.

The 1950′s were great for the Andreou family in Brazil, though one of the men returned to Greece to start his career in jewelry. The others had their own businesses in Brazil and my father had started his own career in jewlery.

One of the highlights of my father’s career was his selection in 1963 by the government of Rio de Janeiro to create the bejeweled Key to City that was to be presented to US President John F. Kennedy, scheduled to visit the city after a brief visit to Dallas, TX. Unfortunately, that was not to be…..

By the mid to late 1960s my father moves to New York City at the urging of his best friend and my godfather, George Papadopoulos (no relation to the Greek Colonel of the same name). By 1980, he was a US citizen, married and with two children. In 1984, my family of Andreou Vergara moves back to Athens, Greece and now my parents are happily retired and enjoying their life.

In the last entry, I presented the history of my arms and how I came about adopting the specific shield. In this entry, I’ll go over the history of my crest, the blazon of which is

Issuant from a torse Argent and Azure surmounting an Ionic Capital Argent an open book Argent bound Azure the dexter page charged with a Saltire the sinister with an Acorn slipped and leaved Azure

and my badge

An Athenian Owl holding in its sinister talon an open book Argent bound Azure the dexter page charged with a Saltire the sinister with an Acorn slipped and leaved Azure

This story is less involved than that of my arms as I already was picturing it in my head while developing the shield.

As it is evident, the same theme of my arms is repeated in my crest.

My Greek heritage is represented by the ionic column supporting the book. I had already decided I would use a book and wanted to make it so that it would appear natural – what better choice than a column’s crest? I chose the Ionic capital over all the other styles as it is, to me, the most attractive of them all and it also has the distinction of representing Athens, the city in which I grew up. The Ionians were one of the three main branches of the Greeks (the other two being the Dorians and Aeolians) and as Herodotus says

ταῦτα δὲ ἦν γινόμενα ἐν Μιλήτῳ. βασιλέας δὲ ἐστήσαντο οἳ μὲν αὐτῶν Λυκίους ἀπὸ Γλαύκου τοῦ Ἱππολόχου γεγονότας, οἳ δὲ Καύκωνας Πυλίους ἀπὸ Κόδρου τοῦ Μελάνθου, οἳ δὲ καὶ συναμφοτέρους. ἀλλὰ γὰρ περιέχονται τοῦ οὐνόματος μᾶλλόν τι τῶν ἄλλων Ἰώνων, ἔστωσαν δὴ καὶ οἱ καθαρῶς γεγονότες Ἴωνες. εἰσὶ δὲ πάντες Ἴωνες ὅσοι ἀπ᾽ Ἀθηνέων γεγόνασι καὶ Ἀπατούρια ἄγουσι ὁρτήν. ἄγουσι δὲ πάντες πλὴν Ἐφεσίων καὶ Κολοφωνίων· οὗτοι γὰρ μοῦνοι Ἰώνων οὐκ ἄγουσι Ἀπατούρια, καὶ οὗτοι κατὰ φόνου τινὰ σκῆψιν.

translation:

The kings, too, whom they set over them, were either Lycians, of the blood of Glaucus, son of Hippolochus, or Pylian Caucons of the blood of Codrus, son of Melanthus; or else from both those families. But since these Ionians set more store by the name than any of the others, let them pass for the pure-bred Ionians; though truly all are Ionians who have their origin from Athens, and keep the Apaturia. This is a festival which all the Ionians celebrate, except the Ephesians and the Colophonians, whom a certain act of bloodshed excludes from it.

The book symbolizes my love for knowledge, of books and reading. I chose a book over an owl as I wanted to minimize whatever repetition of charges in the crest. Originally, I was thinking of an open book bound and clasped [img of such book] but didn’t like it much.

The open book symbolizes the search of knowledge while the charged pages are for the two lines of Andreou (saltire) and Vergara (acorn from an oak tree) coming together in me.

Continuing to my badge, the symbolism is repeated once again only this time, an owl is holding the book as if it were reading it.

The choice of the owl from my badge may seem to contradict what was said above regarding my wish to minimize whatever repetition of charges, however the badge is used independently of the shield whereas the crest is always shown with the shield in an emblazonment.

Today’s entry will be about my coat of arms, how I came about deciding on this design and the symbolism behind it. The blazon of my arms is

Per fess Azure and Argent a Saltire counterchanged between in chief an Athenian Owl (Athene noctua) tourné Argent in base an Oak Tree eradicated Azure.

Kimon Andreou

The emblazonment you see above was created for me by an amazingly talented artist named Srechko Nikitovich of Serbia who is a member of the Center for Research of Orthodox Monarchy, led by the Rev. Deacon Fr. Nenad Jovanovich.

The path to these arms did not come about immediately or without effort.

Originally, I had the hope that perhaps I may lay claim to ancestral arms from one of my family lines. Alas, my Greek ancestry through the “Andreou” line does not have an armigerous member that I or anyone else in my family know of (more on my adventures in genealogy in a future blog entry). However, on my mother’s side I found a number of my ancestral lines bearing arms. My mother’s patrilineal line is the Martínez de Vergara, who descend originally from the Basque Country of Spain through Gibraleón, Huelva in the south of Spain.

The arms above are those identified as belonging to my mother’s patrilineal line. The blazon is

En campo de oro, un árbol de sinople, frutado de oro, con un lobo pasante de sable atado al tronco, bordura de gules con ocho aspas de oro”

or

Or an oak tree Vert fructed Or a wolf passant chained to its bark Sable, a bordure Gules charged with eight saltorels Or

and there are multiple sources confirming this blazon, though my main source is the book by Juan Mujíca titled “Nobleza Colonial de Chile”. In this book, my ancestry is traced from the original Juan Martínez de Vergara from Gibraleón, Huelva, Spain all the way to my grandparents in Santiago, Chile.

Though an argument can be made that I can use those arms, perhaps with a difference, I opted not to since I am fond of the arms following the name. However, I did want to take my maternal arms into consideration when designing my new personal arms.

In my quest to develop my arms, I did a lot of research on line and joined the excellent American Heraldry Society (AHS), of which I eventually became the Ass. Director of IT.

It was at the AHS where, after a couple of rookie mistakes, I received the assistance of certain excellent individuals: David Pritchard, Kenneth Mansfield, Terry Sarros and Maj. José Juan Carrión Rangel of the Spanish Air Force.

It was David who suggested of using a saltire as a cant of my surname. It was Maj. Carrión who explained the symbolism of the Vergara arms. It was Kenneth and Terry who assisted with the layout and the mockups. All of them helped with their strong, constructive criticism.

Now, on to the symbolism.

My surname is “Andreou” or, in Greek, “Ανδρέου” which is the name “Andrew” in the original Greek (Andrew is a Greek name). The saltire is also known as “St. Andrew’s Cross” and that’s why it is commonly found amongst the symbols of countries whose patron saint is St. Andrew (most famous being Scotland). So, the use of the saltire as a cant of my surname is natural. The fact that I am Greek Orthodox and St. Andrew is the patron of the Greek Orthodox Church is an added bonus

The owl is the Athenian Owl, commonly found on the reverse of tetradrachms (4 drachmas) of ancient Athens. The obverse of the tetradrachms portrayed the goddess Athena, patron goddess and namesake of Athens. The owl being the western symbol of wisdom comes from the mythology of the owl being Athena’s favored animal, as goddess of wisdom. My choice of using the owl is due to my constant quest for more knowledge, however mundane it may be to the average person. My choice of the Athenian owl specifically, is as a link to my Greek heritage and my growing up in Athens, Greece.

The oak tree, as one might surmise, is a nod to my maternal arms of Vergara. I much prefer the tree versus the wolf or any of the other choices of the Vergara arms and also chose to blazon it eradicated as I felt it added more character

The choice of color came about in a rather interesting way…. I was trying various tinctures of the field and the charges and every time came back with the owl being Argent. On the other hand, the tree was not as pleasing in Argent and went through even more tincture combinations, eventually ending up with blazoning it Proper. This created the constraint of making the field on which the owl would be to have one of the colors or stains while the tree’s field would have to be one of the metals.

This “problem” resulted in the decision of parting the shield per fess and having Argent in base for the tree and some undecided color in chief for the owl. After multiple tries of colors with meaning to me, whether the meaning was national pride (e.g. American red, white & blue) or just because I like the color, I ended up with Azure as the field for the owl. Azure as my favorite color and the combination of Azure & Argent being the common colors of my background (Greece & Chile) and who I am (USA).

At this point, the saltire had to stand out and was blazoned counterchanged. The blazon for my arms at this point was Per fess Azure and Argent a Saltire counterchanged between in chief an Athenian Owl (Athene noctua) tourné Argent in base an Oak Tree eradicated Proper. However, something didn’t feel right…

After some time thinking about it I finally realized it! It was the tree. It had to change. It had to change to Azure.

This final change made the shield achieve the desired goal of simplicity. I only had 3 charges and 2 tinctures.

After Kenneth emblazoned this latest blazon, I knew it was the right one immediately.

In any case, I put this latest emblazonment through the time honored “fridge test” to be certain. Sure enough, it passed the test and I promptly adopted my arms.

After coming up with a crest, I submitted my registration with the United States Heraldic Registry (USHR), which I highly recommend that every armiger does – it’s free!

Below are the arms of those who helped me with my arms:

Arms of Mr. David A. Pritchard

Arms of Major José Juan Carrión Rangel

Arms of Mr. Kenneth Mansfield

Arms of Mr. Terry Sarros

“IDTG” are the initialis of “ISCHYS DIA TIS GNOSEOS”, the transliteration of the motto of my Coat of Arms in Greek “ΙΣΧΥΣ ΔΙΑ ΤΗΣ ΓΝΩΣΕΩΣ”. It means “power through knowledge” and it has been my guide from a very young age – always trying to learn more, widen my field of knowledge and, in the process, enlarge my personal library of books.

Kimon Andreou

Through this blog I plan to share my thoughts on issues of heraldic, genealogical and historical interest. Though I would like to think I can become as prolific a blogger as to be able to produce a substantive blog entry every day, the pragmatist in me knows that I’ll be more likely to post about once or twice a week after the first couple of weeks go by….

Since this is the very first post of the blog, I’d like to set the tone by introducing myself.

My name is Kimon Andreou and have always been interested in history. Over the past few years, I developed an interest in genealogy and about a year ago, heraldry.

Through the years, my interest in history has changed from antiquity, to the classical period to early modern to current events to medieval history (in that order). In addition to the time period, my geographical interests have shifted from Greece, to Europe to the Americas to Egypt to Africa to Asia, etc. I expect my area of interest to change again, to what, nobody knows yet

My interest in genealogy comes from my curiosity to find out more about my ancestry. Like most, I’ve heard stories about my great-great-…-grandfather who was some important person, or our family’s relationship to someone famous. I always treated them as stories but, one day I decided to see if any of it was true. This led me down a very exciting path of discovery that has not yet reached its end.

From genealogy sprang my interest in heraldry. I discovered ancestral arms from my mother’s side but, nothing from my father’s side. Since I did not want to use arms that didn’t belong to me, I decided to assume arms of my own. The thought and research I put into devising my own arms developed a great passion for the art/science of heraldry that has opened new avenues of exploration to me.

I intend to share my thoughts, discoveries and frustrations as time goes by.

Thank you for reading

Kimon