My wife's ancestors - Maltass - Contents

Maltass of Smyrna, Turkey

Our Maltass family spelt their name "Maltass" consistently.
NOT Maltrass.

They were a European merchant family living for generations in the Ottoman Empire (Turkey).
They are (in the male line) from England.
They went out from England to the Ottoman Empire on commercial and diplomatic business in the 18th century.
They inter-married with other European families living in the Ottoman Empire. (The European families generally did not marry either the Greeks or the Turks.)
My wife has French ancestry through one of these marriages.

Some descendants of the English Maltass family still live in Turkey.
See Historical background.

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Our family

Rev. --- Maltass,
of Ripon, N Yorkshire (N of Leeds),
born c.1700.
[Maltass, 1892] says he might be "the Rev. Farmer Maltus or Malthus" who is mentioned in [Payne, 1890].
He had issue:

1. Henry Maltass.
   He went in mid-18th century to Constantinople, Turkey, the capital of the Ottoman Empire.
   See historical background.

   
   

2. William Maltass,
   born Ripon, Yorkshire.
   He went in mid-18th century (pre-1763) to Smyrna, important port in W Turkey.
   See historical background.

   
   

3. (4 daus) Maltass.

Ripon, Yorkshire, on map of 1686 to 1719.
See modern map.

Extract from [Maltass letter, 1892].

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Maltass and similar of Yorkshire

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Malthus of Berkshire (the economist)

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References

• 1844 letter from Benjamin Maltass to Elizabeth Montgomery.

• MALTASS file in [SOG] Document Collection.
• Maltass family history, post-1901. In Rees family papers. From Graham Russel.

• Gateways to the past - Houses and gardens of old Bornova, Evelyn Lyle Kalcas, privately printed, Bornova.
  • 1st edn 1978.
  • 2nd edn 1983.

• Collections for a history of the family of Malthus, by John Orlebar Payne, London, 1890.
  • Copies in [BL], [SOG], Reading Central Library [Local Studies]
  • Copy in University of London Library ref. [G.L.] K [Malthus-Payne] fol.

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Smyrna BMD records

• Smyrna Anglican Chaplaincy register (1799-1840). Manuscripts Section of Lambeth Palace Library, London.
  • Images online

• Malta Family History (site gone, but archive exists)
  • Index online of BMD Records of British Chapel, Smyrna, 1795 - 1832.
  • Some extracts.

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Sources yet to be consulted

• Smyrna records at [LMA]
  • Smyrna Anglican church registers were all burnt in 1797 in an attack on the Europeans at Smyrna.
  • Later Smyrna church records are in [LMA].
  • Partially transcribed LMA registers
  • Ms 29744-2. Smyrna baptisms (1787-1806) and marriages (1763-1809) and births (1757-1797). And early burial registers for Buca and Bornova (from 1860 and 1863 respectively).

• Smyrna records at [NA.UK]
  • Smyrna and other Levantine consular and diplomatic records.
  • Notes on the NA.UK records

• Graves:
  • Anglican church of St.Mary Magdalene, Bornova.
    • Burials
    • Photos of the Anglican cemetery of Bornova.
    • See location map of the Anglican cemetery (Ingiliz Mezarligi) in Bornova.

  • Anglican church of Buca.
    • Map of graves.
    • Burials
    • See location map of church and cemetery in Buca.

• Houses:
  • "Levantine Heritage in Izmir", MA thesis, Onur Inal, 2006.
    • Copy at levantineheritage.com. Images missing.

  • List of European houses in Smyrna.