Since this website went live in 2006, I've been contacted by numerous members of the Rodinis family from around the world. Most everyone knows of their heritage and their family origins being in either Cres (Cherso) or Greece (Rhodes/Rhodos).
While it is very exciting to hear from you all and share new information, my demanding schedule in Architecture school prohibits me from the rigorous efforts that this research brings. I do try my best to answer everyone's emails and provide you with all of the information that I can. Please bear with me.
If you are a Rodinis, or a descendent of a Rodinis, please contact me to share information.
I would love to hear from you!
ry [dot] rodinis [at] gmail.com
In my immediate family, my grandfather, Bruno Rodinis, began the research that I am working on now. I believe he started in early 2002 after being contacted by Pat Holton (daughter of Mary Rodinis and niece of the late Steve Rocco Rodinis Jr. of Arizona). When Bruno's life was claimed by cancer in November of 2002, I began to satisfy my interest in the new findings that he had shared with us by continuing his research.
Pat Holton pieced together all of the Rodinis' in the United States. That is, her grandfather Stefano Rocco Rodinis and my great-grandfather Pietro Rodinis (brothers) came to the USA from Cherso (or Cres, in the local Croatian form) in the 1920s and began their families (the former in Philadelphia and Arizona and the latter in Brooklyn, NY).
Building on Pat's work, I have been using the Maticna Knjiga documents from Cherso to find the births, deaths, and marriages of the Rodinis' from the town of Cherso on the island of the same name. Thus far, I have gone as far back as 1802 in the death records and 1727 in the birth records within the town of Cherso connecting the few Rodinis families. The books go as far back as the mid-1500s, before which I will have to find a new method of research. After the town of Cherso, I will move on to the next town of Lubenizze (Lubenice) and the other towns on the island of Cherso. For more information on Cherso, please visit the Cherso link on the left.
In 2007, I found a young man named Toni Rodinis who was born, and still lives, on the island of Cherso. His family is from Lubenice. I have begun to connect his ancestors to mine.
Within the past few years, I have come in contact with George Rodinis of Cape Town, South Africa. His father immigrated to South Africa from Greece in the 1950s. I used to make speculations that the Rodinis family originally arrived in Cherso from Greece before the 15th century and connected the surname to the Greek Island of Rhodes based similarity. I further solidified my theory when I found a park on the northern end of the Island of Rhodes named Rodinis. Upon meeting George of Cape Town, I mentioned to him this theory and he informed me that his grandfather, Yani Rodinis, had donated the land to be used as a park to the municpality of Rhodes! George's father Alexander John Rodinis was born in Athens, Greece in 1909. George suspects that his grandfather originated from Rhodes.