I thought I'd share something with the list, and maybe help someone along the
way ...... We are always told to keep an open mind in genealogy, don't have
preconceptions, and investigate every possibility in our search for the truth.
That lesson was brought home to me recently.
As background, my 3GG were Francisco Pereira da Rosa and Maria Delfina who
married and had their children in Flamengos, Faial. I found 8 children for them
as well as followed their ancestors back years ago. Child #1 was my 2GG,
Francisco Pereira da Rosa (we'll call him Frank Jr.). More girls, then Child #4
was a Manuel (we'll call him Manuel #1). The rest were girls until you got to
child #8, another Manuel (we'll call him Manuel #2). This family emigrated to
Washington Twp., Alameda Co. California and I have documented them and their
children forward in time. I had "assumed" all these years, that Manuel #1 had
died as a child or infant because Manuel #2 had married in CA and had 10 kids
..... I don't think I ever searched for his obito. So, fast forward to a couple
of days ago .......
I was contacted by another researcher who, in the process of checking out a
match on FTDNA, realized that her match was related to my Rosa family. I was
skeptical at first because I thought this Manuel had died early and didn't ever
have a family. Anyway, to shorten this story, after a search on Ancestry, I
found some descendants of this Manuel #1. None of these people knew where
Manuel was from or anything about his lineage. But, among their sources, were
obituaries on Manuel #1 and his siblings listed, including married names, all
matched up to my family!! Now, my 2GG, Frank Jr., always used Rosa or later,
Rose, as their surname as did Manuel #2..... all Roses. This newfound Manuel #1
used the name of Rodgers, Manuel Pereira Rodgers, and all his descendants are
Rodgers, also! Now this "new" Manuel was originally know as Manuel Pereira
Rosa, just like his younger brother, Manuel #2. He settled and lived in
Petaluma, Sonoma Co., CA while his other two brothers lived in Centerville and
Alvarado in Alameda Co.
Another little interesting tidbit here is that some years ago, I interviewed an
older cousin of my grandmother. She was 90 years old then but she told me there
were some brothers who kept using Rosa and some that used Rodgers. I
investigated that, halfheartedly because, remember the two brothers I knew of,
used Rosa and the third one I had assumed to die early. Hmmph! Well, I was sure
wrong and now have a whole additional branch to my Family Tree!
So, the moral of this little story is NOT to make assumptions. Usually when
there are more than two children born in a family with the same given name, it
means the first one died early. But, not always! It seems crazy to me that that
this family named two children both Manuel, but then they also named two of
their daughters Maria Delfina! And they both lived, married, and had kids. So,
you just never know! And, DNA does work and IS helpful! If you haven't
submitted yours yet, get 'er done! You never know what connections you might
find.
Kathy
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Visit the Azores GenWeb Project:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~azrwgw/index.html
Climb my Family Tree:
http://www.kathys-place.com/index.html
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