Hello Amy, Have you got your ggrandfather's death cert. from NZ?. This should give his place of birth. If you don't have it then that is where you should start. My ggrandfather was born in the Azores then he travelled to NZ. I was lucky in that a post doctural History student from Victoria University in NZ was doing part of his post doc research on my ggrandfather. This man went on to become the Librarian in charge of archives for the state of Victoria in Australia. I don't know if he is still there but if you get really stuck you could contact him and see if he can give you a pathway to finding your ancestors. I will give you his name if you email me. Good luck. Christine Macedo On Tuesday, January 8, 2013 6:43:25 PM UTC+10, amy...@xtra.co.nz wrote:
> Hi All, > > I am searching for information and I am hoping someone here may be > able to help me. > > My great great great grandfather came from Portugal. The region is > unknown at present but could be somewhere around the Porto district or > Azores region (this is second hand information from a relative). I > think he was born approx 1814 - 1822 (Although family think it could > be as late as 1836 but this doesn't match age on documents I have) and > left Portugal on a whaling ship in which he jumped off in Australia. I > think I have narrowed down the whaling ship to Jeannette which sailed > from New Bedford in 1842 and he was listed as a boy (what does this > mean?). He lived in Australia for a while then sailed on the Oliver > Lang to New Zealand where I believed he changed his name from Jose > Francisco de Simas to either Jose Leal de Simas or Jose Silva de > Simas. I believe the Silva to be his mothers maiden name. > > I am seeking any information about his life but particularly > information about his younger days. I dont have names for his parents > or an exact location of his birth but would love to find this > information out. > > Anyone out there that can help me : > > Thanks > Amy > -- To unsubscribe from this group, send email to azores+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. Follow the confirmation directions when they arrive. For more options, such as changing to List, Digest, Abridged, or No Mail (vacation) mode, log into your Google account and visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Azores. Click in the blue area on the right that says "Join this group" and it will take you to "Edit my membership."