r/armenia • u/ninelino • 2m ago
Armenian families and ancestors
A couple of months ago, I started building my family tree on my father’s Armenian side. So far, I have managed to document more than 350 relatives.
Based on my estimates, however, the tree could potentially include anywhere from 1,000 people—if I am able to find information about the families who fled the Sasun region in the archives of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute or in the Ottoman archives, although I am not very hopeful about the latter.
I have reliable information about my ancestors dating back to 1850. I also know the names of three earlier generations of direct paternal ancestors, but I have no information about the other members of their families. This takes that branch of the family back to approximately 1770–1800.
I had never really thought about just how large Armenian families could be. Of course, I had heard the joke about Armenians having a “small” wedding with more than 200 guests. But now I keep discovering people whom I have not only never met—I did not even know they existed.
So I would like to ask:
1. Are your families just as large?
2. If you have researched relatives who fled the Ottoman Empire—especially from the Sasun Valley, the Khut-Brnashen district, or the villages of Kost and Enguzik—please let me know which sources you used and which archives or institutions you contacted.