So I’ve searched all the usual indices, and I’m still coming up with caves in Greece named after the family and a town in Papua New Guinea which bears the family name.
I’m in touch with people in France who can pretty much tell us how the French came to get to Australia (I can track the family history back to about 1703), but I’m damned if I can work out how these caves and this place in PNG came to bear the family name.
The family name is “Dirou”, and the French relatives who’ve tracked us down through google are saying that the “family” got to be in France via migration from what is now the UK (this actually does make a lot of sense).
As I don’t speak Greek, and I lost my broken English skills long ago (yes, at least 3 members of my family worked in PNG during the “independence period”, and yes, we did visit there), would anyone who IS articulate in these languages be prepared to compose a letter for me?
I don’t give a shit about who had how many illegitimate children with whom; I’m just curious about how these locations came to bear a name which isn’t at all common.
Are you sure they’re “named after the family” and “bear the family name” or could this just be coincidence? A town in PNG could be called Dirou and have no connection with anybody of that name. Similarly with the cave.
I’m with UDS on this one, reprise. Sounds like you’re chasing a “one-name study”. Might be interesting finding out the derivations of the place names, though.
Hey Reprise, Cazzle’s a whiz with genealogical enquiries. I’m sure if you said G’day on a bended-downunder knee, she’d point you in the right direction!
I’m here, but I don’t really have any advice to offer. My family tree has been mainly confined to Victoria and the UK, and I’ve never delved into European records. I agree with the two posters who suggested that co-incidence may be the only link between the family name, the Greek caves and PNG. Family legends sometimes have a basis in truth, but often have more of a basis in people passing assumptions along as fact, so if a member of the family who isn’t actively researching tries to tell you the family certainly did have the caves named after them, take notes but don’t put too much faith in it until you can prove it one way or the other.
I checked www.one-name.org and found nothing. www.yourfamily.com - nothing www.familysearch.org - 3 in the Ancestral file (user submitted), plenty of French listings in the IGI.
I hate Ancestry, they’re horrific spammers and they’re ruining genealogy on the internet by taking over all the good sites that don’t spam, but…
they claim to have some matches.
Sorry I can’t be of more help. Email me if you want any Australian records checked, Reprise. I have the Australian Vital Records Index which contains some NSW records, but most of my resources are Victorian.
Yeah, you don’t need a genealogist but a historian.
I would suggest visiting your local university and trying to get their help. If you do mail letters to these places be sure to include a self addressed stamped envelope for return. Maybe even a little incentive for them to reply like $10. Some places are real difficult about this kinda stuff.
I know I thought about doing some stuff in Slovakia and a lot of their advice was like that. Mostly because a lot of these people are busy with other stuff and feel no need to help some foreigner do something that’s not their job anyway.
Hmm, the caves were apparantly named after the nearby town Pirgos Dirou and I’m thinking that for the Greek one Dirou might be a form of Diros. They definately look like they come from the same noun. Yes I’m sure of it since other sites refer to the town as Pyrgos Diros and the caves as the Diros Caves.