My hobby when I was in elementary school was to read the encyclopedia. I know, I know, too much free time! That is what happens when you grow up in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. Back to the main topic, I didn’t read the entire encyclopedia, as even my childhood free time was finite. I read specifically all entries labeled as ‘Mythology’. After a while I realised that the family relationships are just too many and assumed the task of listing down the Olympian family tree as best as I could. I used hole punched paper, colored pens and a big folder with hole fasteners in order to extend the section for each god when it became too long to fit the page (especially true for Zeus and Poseidon). Eventually, I made lists of all gods and they’re relationships, children, ceremonial names, groups they belonged to, as well as groups of notable mortals. I continued my search towards other sources apart from our 30-book encyclopedia and expanded to Scandinavian, Roman, Egyptian and Hinduistic mythologies as well. At some point, I decided to input my handwritten forms into an excel file in order to be able to search more efficiently. Still, I kept the color coding for the names and groups.
Now, my childhood project is digitally available to the world at:
If you are interested, have a look. There are 6 main excel pages; Gods, Goddesses, God groups, Mortal groups, Ceremonial epithets and, finally, Roman equivalents. You can also download the entire excel file by pressing the arrow button on the left. Unfortunately, the language of the files is Greek. You may need to use a translator to make use of the information.
I hope you enjoy diving in the godly gossip as much as I did.
belleelene 