Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen
A "brick-wall" DIY genealogy podcast that features your questions and Kathleen Brandt's answers. She wants your stories, questions, and “brick walls”. But be ready to add to your "to-do" list. As Kathleen always says, this is a Do it yourself (DIY) genealogy podcast. “I'll show you where the shovel is, but I'm not digging up your family.”
Maybe, you have no idea where to start searching for an ancestor. Or, perhaps you want to know more about your family folklore. Host Kathleen has 20 years in the industry and is the founder of a3genealogy. She's able to dispense genealogy research advice and encouragement in understandable terms that won't get you lost in genealogy jargon. Along with her husband and co-host, John, she helps you accomplish "do-it-yourself" research goals, learn some history, and have a bit of fun along the way. Light-hearted and full of detailed info, Hittin' the Bricks is your solution for your brick-wall research problems.
Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen
Tracing Greek Ancestry: The Chopelas Chronicles
Ever wonder how your newly arrived immigrants tackled the new land? Join us for a fascinating journey as we trace the Greek ancestry of our neighbor and guest, Stephanie Holthaus. Stephanie captivates us with tales of her maternal grandfather, Pete Constantine Chepolas. We aid Stephanie through a maze of Greek related ancestral records to trace her family from Greece to Texas with a few stops along the way. Plus, we explore an unexpected twist in Stephanie's ancestry — a DNA cousin of Turkish descent!
Tune in for this engrossing exploration into family history and DYI Greek genealogy!
Be sure to bookmark linktr.ee/hittinthebricks for your one stop access to Kathleen Brandt, the host of Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen. And, visit us on YouTube: Off the Wall with Kathleen John and Chewey video recorded specials.
Hittin' the Bricks is produced through the not-for-profit, 501c3 TracingAncestors.org.
Thanks to MyHeritage for their generous support to Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen! Follow us on social media and subscribe to HTB with Kathleen in order to enter your name in our monthly MyHeritage Complete Package giveaway starting Jan 2024!
Ladies and gentlemen from the depths of flyover country in the heartland of America, the Kansas City, on the other side of the mighty Moe, welcome to Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen, the genealogy show that features your questions and her answers. I am John, your humble hubby host, and on this episode we'll be talking to Stephanie Holthouse of the Show Me State, via the Lone Star State and literally just down the street. So let's start Hittin' the Bricks, kathleen. Today We are here with Stephanie Holthouse, and Stephanie actually is a neighbor, isn't she?
Kathleen Brandt:Stephanie, you live just a few stores down and across the street. I'm really happy that some of the neighbors have asked me on the podcast. Well, Stephanie, tell us a little bit about yourself. Oh, you want me to do that part. John was supposed to do that part, but that's okay.
John Brandt:Stephanie again. It's been over 10 minutes since our last one, and so I've completely forgotten my part. Stephanie has questions. I'm sure you guys have talked. We're looking at some grease research.
Kathleen Brandt:Yeah, that's correct.
John Brandt:Oh fun.
Stephanie Holthaus:I have some research about my grandfather, Peter Constantine Chocolis. If anybody else shows up in the family tree, that would be great too.
Kathleen Brandt:Well, Stephanie, I had a couple of questions. Did your grandparents speak Greek in the house And did your mother speak? Oh, absolutely.
Stephanie Holthaus:Mother's first language was Greek She was the oldest child and so Greek was always around. Greek, okay, perfect.
Kathleen Brandt:Stephanie, you two were raised in Texas. Is that correct? That is correct. And, john, one of the podcasts that Stephanie commented on was the one about the Texas and the Camels. Oh, that's right.
John Brandt:That lovely little tidbit about how we imported camels for the first time. on That's right.
Stephanie Holthaus:Yeah, that is one of the topics that Texas students always learn, because we get a full full book load of Texas history in elementary and junior, high and high school.
Kathleen Brandt:And I can tell you, in Kansas we did not learn about the camels. However, in our neighborhood in central Kansas we did have camels in Nickerson, Kansas, And I don't know when they came in, but I think I was older. And around the corner from us, Stephanie, we have a camel farmer. That's what.
Stephanie Holthaus:I understand. Yes, that's really interesting, isn't it?
Kathleen Brandt:Yes, she's very involved again from Kansas with the camel farm.
John Brandt:Kathleen, the camels that came in with you did they have like wrinkling brothers written on the side?
Kathleen Brandt:They did not. They were actually in a field and there was also some ostriches. Is that how you say the plural of ostrich?
John Brandt:Ostrich.
Kathleen Brandt:Ostrich? No, I don't think so Ostriches. And they had alpaca. I want to say some alpaca, yeah sure. So anyway, john, we're going to talk a little bit today about Stephanie's two questions.
John Brandt:Yes, I have a booklet that you gave me on notes.
Kathleen Brandt:Because Stephanie was testing my check.
John Brandt:Seriously, this is a multi-page notebook.
Kathleen Brandt:Stephanie was testing me. What could I tell her about Greek research? And we've done quite a bit of Greek research at A3 Genealogy and it has changed over the years, so I'm going to give her some hints. the first question was is there a way for her to learn her maternal, grand her maternal? okay, let's try it again.
John Brandt:One more time.
Kathleen Brandt:Stephanie, what is your first question?
Stephanie Holthaus:It's been so long I forgot. No, how do I go about learning where and when my grandfather was born and the circumstances under which he immigrated? probably in 1895, if I'm correct, that is correct.
Kathleen Brandt:So that was one of her questions, and the second question we're going to also address is to talk about her DNA cousin, match. He is of Turkish descent, right? So she had a question on that also. So let's get started. First of all, stephanie, tell me, what do you know about your maternal grandfather?
Stephanie Holthaus:You know my Papu, that's Greek for grandfather. My Papu came to this country in 1895 and he came through the port of New York. He did not come through Ellis Island because Ellis Island wasn't open at that time. He found his way to Galveston, texas, after a few years, i guess, in New York, where he worked. And then he got together with some other Greek young men and they went to Galveston, texas, because they understood that there were openings in restaurants there and he worked there. And he was there in 1900 when the flood of Galveston occurred And he told Mother that he was on one of the few buildings that actually survived and he watched with his friends his bodies washing by. You know, it was a terrible, terrible thing. And he also told Mother that he vowed that he would never go back to Galveston and he never did. They didn't doubt us for the rest of his life.
Kathleen Brandt:And did your mother ever mention what his first name was? Yeah, Peter. She actually used the word Peter, not Pete.
Stephanie Holthaus:I think that his restaurant in Stanford was called Keats Kitchen. Ok, but you know, yeah, well, she always referred to him as dad, or daddy, of course, of course.
Kathleen Brandt:So there's a few things, john, that's interesting about Stephanie's family, and one is her mother had three brothers in the military and one passed away.
John Brandt:Yeah, And which military?
Stephanie Holthaus:The army. Well, World War Two. World War Two is the war in the US Army. The US Army OK.
John Brandt:I'm just making sure we're in this.
Stephanie Holthaus:All the children were born here.
John Brandt:OK.
Stephanie Holthaus:Uncle Tally is buried in the American military cemetery in the Philippines and Manila.
Kathleen Brandt:Who was buried in the Philippines, in Manila, uncle Tally, uncle Tally, yeah, and there is also a John who is in the military, yeah, and for some reason his records and a lot of family information is at the University of Central Arkansas. Can you tell me why You had a whole book? Why?
Stephanie Holthaus:is it there? Because Uncle John accumulated a lot of memorabilia about the 8th Army Air Force, which is what he was in. He was a radio man and he flew something like thirty one thirty two sorties We call them sorties or attacks And survived barely. And he, when he got out, of course, he went to Baylor, got a degree in journalism, but after he retired he decided he was going to collect memorabilia about the 8th Army Air Force And he accumulated all of these things. So he had to have a place to store them And the University in Central Arkansas said that they would give him a room. And they did, and he's got all these boxes. When he died in 2019, four years ago, the family tried to give some of the things to Central Arkansas And they said oh, please, no, we're out of room, we can't take any more. So we had to figure out something else to do with those books and papers, but we did.
Kathleen Brandt:One of my questions is have you actually been able to go through that collection? No, i haven't, and there's one or two or several letters that he wrote to your mother Yeah, i'm sure, and I can see quite a few on their catalog. So I am going to suggest also that you can look at that and see if maybe he didn't get some information from his parents that might even give us some more hints than what I'm going to mention in a few minutes. That was a long way around. John me talking about another place to go for Stephanie, but her first question being who is Pete Chopoulos? her maternal grand grandfather led me on a fun trip.
Kathleen Brandt:Stephanie provided us with a naturalization record and it was the final papers. They did not carry the first papers. And Stephanie, i don't know if you know what the first papers gives a little information and is what we're looking for when we're doing Greek research, which is the earliest records we can find in America. First, because we have to have his original spelling or original reference of his name. So a couple of things that you said. I'm going to kind of correct it and explain why I'm correcting it. Ok, he did come in the ship in 1895. And this is all on his naturalization records, right, and it does say he came in the port of New York And that really was Ellis Island.
Kathleen Brandt:Ellis Island opened in 1892. January 1, the first little Irish girls walked off of it And that is really where we found some of the additional information was through those records and through the ship records, and the way I found this information was totally convoluted. Stephanie, as you had mentioned to me when we talked earlier, the paper is really hard to read And you were trying to point out names and things that you could pick out on this naturalization record, and what I did is I tried to find a cleaner copy to make my job easier for you. However, i failed And the reason is because Jones County District Court has no record of any of their naturalization records And they're not where they should be, which is in Angelo, texas, at that repository, and they're not with the state archives. So what I did is I went.
John Brandt:Hang on a second. I'm going to give you a break, because that doesn't sound like you failed. You just didn't find them. That's correct. I want you to take that on as a failure. Well, thank you, john.
Kathleen Brandt:That's very sweet of you.
John Brandt:I don't want to come by and see you weeping in your room that you've failed. I mean, you just weren't in the place they should have been.
Kathleen Brandt:I probably called about Tim Places, however, looking for these records, because I was determined to find them and I never did.
John Brandt:They just weren't in the place where you were looking. It's like the car keys for me and socks and you know, chewie's leash Right. It's just a fail. I just haven't found them. They weren't in the place. They should be right. That's correct, john.
Kathleen Brandt:OK, and so, stephanie, please go, please continue. So, stephanie, what I did do is decipher your paper, the naturalization record And Yep, kathy, not sure what happened.
John Brandt:I can hear you Yeah, yeah, she bumped into something because it lost the full connection.
Stephanie Holthaus:Well, we can discuss this. John, I'm having fun too while we're doing it. I'll take you, she's in another room.
John Brandt:She's in her office. I'm in mind. There we go, Hi.
Kathleen Brandt:Hi, I can welcome that Welcome back Kavlain. I kind of forgot to plug in the power to my system. I ran out of batteries.
Stephanie Holthaus:So it's been working on a battery.
Kathleen Brandt:So I'm going to talk about the naturalization record and what it tells us. The biggest key that I caught Stephanie for waiting a minute was off of the naturalization record that she gave me.
John Brandt:Oh OK.
Kathleen Brandt:Was both the date he came into New York and the line he came in on. Yeah, and from that I could trace him to be an ownership manifest. And it is actually him. His name is Penaeotikopolis, penaeotis is that how you pronounce it in Greek, penaeotis, and that does mean Peter Right. And Copolis was spelled with a K on the original ship record, k-o-p-e-l-a-s. That's correct, copolis, huh, yeah, copolis. So that is where we found him, using the October 31st 1895 ship date that was on his naturalization, and he even told us he came in on the 5th of Fabrile, which is a French line. Actually, supposedly he stopped in Mercy, france, and also maybe Italy. That information is online And I used Stephen Morris' ship records M-O-R-S-E, and then you use it in conjunction with other ship records.
Kathleen Brandt:I used the one at the Ellis Island website, but I believe the same is at ancestrycom, and I was able to find him using that date. So I said that was the biggest key. He said that his destination was Lowell, l-o-w-e-l-l, massachusetts, exactly. That's why I was so excited to find it, because I had already found some other tropas in Massachusetts. Yeah, and they all do seem related.
Kathleen Brandt:Yeah, and it seems like he might have had a brother named. He had two other brothers that are Christos and George, and there are quite a few families there, and so when we find them all in Massachusetts except he disappears, as he tells us on his naturalization record. He doesn't stay there. He goes to Texas, as mentioned, and sets up business. In general, his records all say Pete, not Peter, and that's what I don't know, because I do not have where he would have made. His legal name change would have shown up on the paperwork that I was looking for, but what did come up was his mother and father's name. Oh good, and I am not supposed to be doing this much research, john, i know, but in this case, with Greek research, i can't get Stephanie on the right page if we don't have at least the right names of the family. Yeah, she can't go to do anything in Greece at all.
John Brandt:And it has nothing to do with your obsession on research.
Kathleen Brandt:I understand that It has nothing to do with that obsession.
John Brandt:This is purely because Stephanie needed to Yeah.
Kathleen Brandt:I was doing it for Stephanie.
John Brandt:I understand And anything for the cause.
Kathleen Brandt:So, Stephanie, you did mention that your mother had these uncles, but you didn't remember the names. Is that correct?
Stephanie Holthaus:Well, the only uncle that we knew of was Uncle Spiro, but he was a mature. He was grandmother's brother.
Kathleen Brandt:Oh, ok, ok. So these choplas stayed in Lowell, and in Lowell is a Trinity Orthodox Church. But guess what's also in Dallas? And guess who married your grandparents? I have no idea. The Greek Orthodox Church. Well, yeah, and it's also Trinity Right. And they had their second biggest branch. Actually, one of them was in Louisiana. Who married them? He came up to Dallas and married them, father Valentina, and then they were very active in the Hellenic community right there in Dallas, and so by following that migration path, i was able to get quite a bit of information. The interesting part about it is that I failed to get the Orthodox Church to give me the marriage records or more information. We can see the basics, but we know they have more. But the pair's name were found through the brother of Pete, christos, his marriage record name Ephrosina Mazzara And Stephanie. Know that. You will get all of my notes. I will write it up for you. Thank, you.
Kathleen Brandt:But it's Ephrosina Mazzara and Anastasio Choplas. That's the father And, according to Christos, we did not see him on other records. But just like I did that on Christos, you need to go back to the lower records and see if there's more information on George, and not only in Lowell. They're in that whole community, which is a very strong Greek community, like Dallas. That was one of the questions you actually asked And that should get you started. In which town were they living in? in Greek?
Kathleen Brandt:In Greece, stephanie, megalopolis, megalopolis. Yeah, he's from megalopolis, yes, megalopolis. So that will get you started with the megalopolis records. Okay, the problem is most of those records are in Greek. Right When I first, right When I first started doing genealogy, all of those records are in Greek. We now have some of them that are indexed, oh good. So I will give you a list of places you can go. My heritage has a few on their webpage. The woman is extremely hard to find because everything is male-based, but there are things like the voter records, but marriage records you might be able to find on greekancestrynet. You're nowhere ready to go to Greece. We want to make sure that Christos he was a brother, not a cousin. Cindy's list, if you go on it, it will give you a whole list of Greek resources. What?
John Brandt:is Cindy's list. I've never heard of that.
Kathleen Brandt:Cindy actually is a person and that I used to sit at tables with her at conferences And she comes up with these wonderful lists of resources. It does not tell you your answers, it tells you where to go, it just, and so we use her list a lot. If I'm looking for any record, i might search her site first and make a checklist from that. And thanks for asking that, john. Does she have a?
John Brandt:WW on it It's.
Kathleen Brandt:CYNDIS, are you going to include it in your? It will actually be in the show notes. I don't want you to think it's one list. It's many, many, many lists on every topic that's tied to genealogy that you'd ever want.
John Brandt:Wonderful, very neat.
Kathleen Brandt:Yes, so there are quite a few record places that I do think that you should go to, and one is all of the Hellenic societies both in Massachusetts and Texas. Often they have bios written up for their members. That would be a lot of help, especially if you can get an early one for even Christos and George that might name all of their siblings, even the ones behind in Greece. You also want to look into the Trinity Church again and try them again, especially the one in Dallas, because they should have more on your direct line. They should have my baptismal record. Yes, it should, but she wasn't sure that they even had any baptismal records. Oh, really, yes, But again, it might be easier if you're saying this is for me.
Kathleen Brandt:Christos returned to Greece, so he has a passport. A copy of the passport or a site of the passport might be at the federal. It should be on the federal level, but we do not have a copy of it. But again, you can also go to my web page A3, genealogy, and that blog page will guide you on ways to get a passport if you just search for a passport.
John Brandt:How do we find that blog page?
Kathleen Brandt:Thank you, John, for asking. It's at3genealogycom And if you go to the right side of that page you'll see blog and it's linked right to it, Or you can just Google blog A3 Genealogy and you can access it. Thank you so much, Kathleen. Thank you, Kathleen. He's teasing me, Stephanie, because I mentioned my web page on everything.
John Brandt:She mentions it during dinner too. It's not just for the podcast.
Stephanie Holthaus:Oh, and one of the two of yous communicate with me, she texts me during dinner and says check the blog for the menu.
Kathleen Brandt:So, stephanie, also, there is a great guy who does Greek research that I have relied on for years. His name is Gregory Contas, k-o-n-t-o-s, and I'm going to send you a link to his video That is really good of how to do your Greek research. Okay.
John Brandt:Any sort of DNA in this case, or are we?
Kathleen Brandt:We actually do. Stephanie does have her DNA on 23, and me at least. Do you have other places, stephanie, that you put up your No? that's the only one. She has a Turkish cousin Let's just call him Essen And he and she have been trying to figure out how they are related, and if you've read much about Greek and Turkey, you would know the convoluted history that they have, and there are some good books out there on it, essen actually did give me some titles to look into.
Stephanie Holthaus:Apparently, his grandmother, who was Greek and they didn't know about until she died, was one of those that eloped with her Turkish lover. He was a postmaster on an island somewhere in the Aegean And they settled in Turkey about the time of, or just before, world War I Right.
Kathleen Brandt:And you know, most Greeks DNA will have Italy or Albania or Bulgaria or Turkey in it. There's one book that I really love Twice a stranger the mass expulsions that forged modern Greece and Turkey is by Bruce Clark. One of the reasons I liked it is because it was well cited and sourced And it also told you the history, so you can actually kind of understand why you and Essen are going to be related somehow, right? Unfortunately, using your DNA, it is five generations, okay, which means that you are looking for the most recent common ancestor being a third great grandparent. Yeah, in this case we've only gone back one great grandparent, so you would have to flesh out your history and his family. Yeah, the other way to do it is using all the other DNA matches That would make me excited until I saw yours that have very few, if any, greek matches. You and Essen do not match on the capital groups. Of course, that tells me that it's not his mother. Your mother aren't directly related, but also not on the X chromosome.
Kathleen Brandt:So at this point we take the fan charts of DNA, the one that's a half circle. Yeah, fill it out on both you and he as far as you can, uh-huh. And then there are a lot of the people that you can just delete. You can delete your entire father's side, we can delete everyone who's on the same X for right now, and through the process of elimination you can determine a little bit more and then wait for more DNA matches to come up. Okay, and according to the Greek records in the Greek archives, they don't have enough archival records at this point where you really can go five generations back. They're pretty much only four generations back, i see. Okay, well, that's interesting, but I still want you to build out your trees, stephanie, just because I think all people should have their trees built out. And Oh sure, it has nothing to do with anything else, it's just feeding my knee.
Stephanie Holthaus:He just said he wanted us all to be researchers, just like you.
Kathleen Brandt:Adding into it, adding to it And just put a little bit in there. So what I have left me is looking again for the Declaration of Intention following the Lowell Massachusetts family, checking the Orthodox church records, not only in Dallas and Lowell.
Kathleen Brandt:You may have to also look at Louisiana with Father Farentino, i believe because he did come to Dallas and he was going back and forth and helped establish the Dallas Hellenic Society and the groups there, and so and he might have those earlier records when your grandparents got married And that might be why they can't find them in the Dallas Orthodox Church. So those are just a few places, john, that I had for Stephanie. As far as for her to go to further, stephanie, what?
Stephanie Holthaus:questions do you have for me, Considering what little information I had on that side of the family? you've done a tremendous job in helping me go forward, I think, with your suggestions.
Kathleen Brandt:I'll just wait on your notes You won't get it till Sunday.
Stephanie Holthaus:Down the street knocking on your door.
John Brandt:Yeah, that won't yield very good results, because you're just going to have me and the dog And I have nothing to do with the nuts and bolts of this stuff. I'm basically a button pusher. And I'll wait for Stephanie to come home And yeah, you don't normally have to wait too long, because I promise you she can't put stuff down.
Kathleen Brandt:Are you sure about that?
John Brandt:Yeah, I'm sure about that.
Kathleen Brandt:Well, I was going to cook you dinner.
John Brandt:Yeah, looks like me and the dog are going to be sharing a bowl again, so again, again.
Kathleen Brandt:I think that's a wrap up, as John would say, yep.
Stephanie Holthaus:That's wonderful. Thank you, Kathleen and John. It has been a wonderful time being with you.
John Brandt:Great, Thank you. Thanks so much, Steph. We'll see you around the neighborhood. Don't get festive. A pat and a Kurt Hello.
Stephanie Holthaus:I will do that, thank you. Thanks a lot Bye bye, bye bye.
Kathleen Brandt:Stephanie did not mention in her intro that she actually has been a volunteer for the National Archives Kansas City Branch for years as a transcriber and working with the older records.
John Brandt:Oh, that's fantastic And that's a volunteer work.
Kathleen Brandt:It's volunteer work. I have done some too, Also there, John. did you not know that?
John Brandt:No, i don't pay attention to a lot of things, but I think it's remarkable that Stephanie did it.
Stephanie Holthaus:Wow.
John Brandt:I have no words to say, that's just you making an excuse to be involved or hang out with a bunch of dusty books?
Kathleen Brandt:Well, that's true too, and it was a lot of fun.
John Brandt:Why don't we close down and let's have some lunch or something? Sounds great. Well, congratulations, you've made it to the end of another episode. Thanks so much for staying. Thanks to Stephanie for spending some time with us. Thanks to Chewy Chewbacca Brandt, our part-time printer technician and full-time monkey dog, for his unwavering lack of interest in anything we're doing. The theme song for Hit in the Bricks was written and performed by Tony Fisknuckle and the Hookworms Watch for their next appearance at midnight in the Garden of Golden Evil. You can find us on Apple, spotify and, of course, buzzsprout. We'd love to hear what you think about the podcast, so stop by our Facebook page at Hit in the Bricks and let us know.
