Great post, it also helps me to understand that in one record an ancestor was listed as Rita Josefa and in another as Josefa Rita. thanks Marilyn
On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 11:33 PM, <p...@dholmes.com> wrote: > For all new Portuguese genealogists: > > I have run across something just tonight during my research that I think > will help out researchers who haven't had enough experience to decide on > their own whether a particular record is for their sought ancestor, or not. > > I met online a man from Terceira who now lives in CA and so has 100% of > his ancestors from Terceira. > He is from the village of São Mateus da Calheta, which is a little west of > the city of Angra. A beautiful church is right on the main road that > encircles the island. > > Since I happen to have many ancestors from São Mateus - it's where my > surname combination was created (Rocha Homem/Holmes), I knew there is > practically a guarantee that we would be related many times over. > > Having an interest in his own ancestry, he immediately sent me a list of > many ancestors going back to the 1600s in many cases. While looking over > his data and comparing it to mine, I was reminded of the topic of this > message. > > Amongst his ancestors are a series of ancestors who used the name FERREIRA > da SOUSA as well as FERREIRA BRIOSO. It happened with several generations > of this line. One might find them one time listed as Francisco Ferreira de > Sousa and at another time as Francisco Ferreira Brioso. Knowing it is the > same person comes from the constant name of the wife and all happening in > one village and time period. > > On another of his lines he has ancestors named GOMES RIBEIRO. This > ancestor was also called RIBEIRO GOMES. Each time, it is known to be the > same person because it was the same name for his wife. > > But topping it off, when he married, he used yet a third name of MARTINS > RIBEIRO. I don't believe I have ever run across this before. And one must > use extreme caution when making such a conclusion, or you could end up > tracing all the wrong ancestors. > > To be certain, one must carefully study all the names for all children in > the family. Some will be exactly the same as others. Some will be different > than the others, but match those of other siblings. But when it came to > this marriage, I was at a loss, because it should have happened in one of > the villages such as São Mateus, São Bartolomeu, Santa Bárbara or maybe in > Sé, Angra. But I have completed all the marriages for these places in this > time frame and still came up empty. > > Just for the heck of it, I decided to search my entire database contained > in my genealogy program. There are over 225,000 people so far entered. I > figured I must have found this marriage already. So I searched for the name > of the wife and then just RIBEIRO for the husband. I don't know if all > genealogy programs can do this. I only use BROTHER'S KEEPER and have done > so for about 25 years. Others will surely tell me if they can search for > people in this way. If they can't then I would never want such a genealogy > program, because I would be lost and have many duplicate couples under > different names which I try extremely hard to avoid. > > Well, I did find a second match and it was in one of those villages, as I > expected. And it was in a time frame I expected. What I never expected was > this third name variation - MARTINS RIBEIRO. But I even went back and > looked at this marriage yet again. Clear as day it's Martins Ribeiro. And > he even has a father and brother using Martins Ribeiro. So this is no > mistake. > > I had no children attached to that couple whose marriage I had found. I > only had children attached to the them when they used the first two name > variations. > > Just so you know, these are not my ancestors. They are simply part of my > massive project to trace the genealogies of everyone who ever was born or > lived in Terceira (and also Pico island). So until today, I never searched > for baptisms for this couple and when I found the first child with the > reversal of RIBEIRO GOMES to GOMES RIBEIRO, it all started to fall into > place what was going on here - the common name variation that one always > will find in any Portuguese tree. > > I don't expect anyone will ever find such an example as above. But one > will ALWAYS find that one person in their family tree (in Portugal) has a > name variation that will throw a curve ball your way and make you think > something is wrong. > > If you have ancestors from Pico or Terceira and are stuck, let me know. > > Boa sorte! > > Doug da Rocha Holmes > Sacramento, California > Pico & Terceira Genealogist > 916-550-1618 > www.dholmes.com > > -- > -- > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > azores+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. 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