Cheri, Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Such fascinating and helpful information! I enjoyed reading the naming practices. Insightful article about Finding Your Roots too!
Such a fascinating narrative about what may have happened with Maria and the baby. It'll just be one of those things we'll never know! I did locate a woman in my cousin's tree called Violante Rosa de Medeiros Festa who lived in Faial da Terra with an occupation as midwife/parteira that would have been 30 in 1866 when Jose was born. Interesting. My parents are both deceased and the only living sibling of my dad is his younger sister, about 82. She's in good physical health but she's been in the Casa de Saúde in Ponta Delgada since she was 18. I was there last in 2017 and wish I had been interested in this at the time. There's a possibility I might visit next year and I think for her the best thing would be a cheek swab so it looks like FTDNA would fit the bill for that. I did my own testing with 23andme. I've uploaded my results to FTDNA on your suggestion and will eagerly await the results. I have a lot of research ahead of me! I appreciate all the help and advice! Diane On Saturday, September 22, 2018 at 1:24:36 PM UTC-4, Cheri Mello wrote: > > Diane DM, > > They are small villages and people talk. People may have seen Maria and > knew she was pregnant. And perhaps Maria thought no one saw her or no one > would talk. So after giving birth, she leaves her baby at the roda (the > wheel - it's like a Lazy Susan for offerings given to the church). The baby > is turned over to the Camara and they assign a nursing woman to feed the > baby. The child, if it lives, is raised by the family for 7 years. At the > age of 7, the child can chose to stay with the family or make his/her own > way. > > Now, if people saw Maria and saw that she had no baby, they may have asked > her where it was. So then she claimed her baby. Maybe she had a change of > heart and decided to claim her baby and raise him herself. Maybe as he got > a little bigger, he looked so much like her that she went ahead and claimed > him. We don't know. Somewhere between Jose's birth and marriage, he found > out who his mom was. > > Why these expostos pick a certain surname - who knows. It could be from > one of the families they lived with. It could be a surname of importance in > the freguesia, so picking that well-known name might give them better > opportunities. We just don't know their reasons. > > On Sao Miguel island, when referring to Faial da Terra they either write > Faial da Terra or Faial. If they are talking about the island of Faial, > they say ilha da Faial. Yep, the first time I saw that I was confused > myself! > > Surnames are fluid. It takes a while to get used to this. Immigrants often > dropped the de/da/do prefix to the surname. The double consonant were > dropped in many words when the language was "modernized" in 1910/1911 or > so. Here's a little article that Kathy Cardoza and I wrote on surnames. > It's on the Azores GenWeb here: https://goo.gl/4aU6sP > > To go back a generation and finding the siblings of one of your > grandparents (the one who has "pai incognito" may not have any other known > siblings - at least from that mother) ... Yes, the hunt, just as you said. > A few churches have indices. If you use Tombo.pt, he lists them for you, if > they exist: > [image: image.png] > This church, Sao Miguel Arcanjo, in Vila Franca, has separate indices in > addition to the baptisms, marriages, and deaths. They also have books of > legitimizations - where the parent(s) come forward and say the baby is > theirs. Sometimes, the legitimization is recorded in the margin too. Or > quite often, just not recorded. > > Some priests may have put an index in the back of the book. Here's one > from Ribeira das Tainhas: > [image: image.png] > > Name, parents, record number, and page. Watch that "v." (Yeah, sorry, the > priest in my freguesia wasn't so good at penmanship). The first record is > #49 on page 21v, meaning 21 verso. In English, page 21 reverse. In normal > thinking, turn to page 22 and look on the left. > > Anyways, collecting the siblings is a good thing. Once you find one > though, you go 9 months forwards or backwards (depending on which way you > are researching) and then start looking for another baby. You are stuck > hunting for the parents only in the 3rd time period - that's where the > record gives all that detail. Then you hit about 1860 (the 2nd time > period). Working back in the 2nd time period it will say right on the first > line, Jose, filho de Manuel da Silva and Maria da Souza. That part becomes > much easier, but there are no grandparents. The 3 time periods, with what > to expect in each record can be found again on the Azores GenWeb here: > https://goo.gl/4Tzc2i > > Yes, DNA is bringing new people to our wonderful world of genealogy. So > no, it wasn't silly. If you did not test with Family Tree DNA (FTDNA) , > transfer your results there. If you did test with FTDNA, be sure to join > the Azores DNA Project. I can email you the directions on these if you need > them. gfscherim at gmail.com If your parents are alive or have any > remaining siblings, DNA test them now. You will be glad you did. FTDNA as > will as the other major companies will have a DNA sale at the end of the > year. > Good luck, Cheri Mello > Cheri Mello > Listowner, Azores-Gen > Researching: São Miguel island: Vila Franca, Ponta Garca, Ribeira Quente, > Ribeira das Tainhas, Achada > > > On Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 9:51 AM Diane DeMelo <[email protected] > <javascript:>> wrote: > >> Cheri and Bill, >> >> Thank you so very much for helping decipher these records. I cannot thank >> you enough. Thank you for clarifying my grandfather's birth year. My >> brother-in-law thought it was 1897, I thought it looked like 1898 so >> another set of eyes is appreciated. >> >> My cousin has a very extensive family tree but there was missing >> information about my father's side. I have incredible information about my >> mother's maternal and paternal line going back generations and now having >> more information about my father is satisifying. Having my sister get my >> grandparents information on her recent trip to Sao Miguel has indeed been >> fruitful as we were able to connect to people in his tree that had no >> descendants or missing descendants recorded. I wish I was interested in >> genealogy when my mother was alive. It took me to do a silly DNA test to >> suddenly be interested. Ah, such is life. >> >> If I'm understanding the record about my grandfather's father - >> information for his mother and father are missing/unknown parents. This is >> interesting. I'm trying to figure out how he ended up with the name de >> Resendes then. I wonder if his mother (the woman listed as Maria Pereira de >> Melo) died young and Violante raised him. Is that Faial the island or Faial >> da Terra? ON my cousin's family tree I see a Violante de Resendes (who had >> a mother with de Medeiros and a father with de Resende --missing the s) who >> was born 1827 and died 1896. She and her husband (Jose Carreiro) were from >> neighboring Agua Retorta. >> >> I figured with one of the records listing his mother as Maria Pereira de >> Melo, she must have given the child either her mother or father's surname. >> The surnames are so confusing. For examle, my father and all his siblings >> got the surname of my grandmother Maria Lourdes de Melo and not the father, >> Jose Pereira de Resendes. At some point the de got dropped and the original >> double L in deMello was dropped to a single L. >> >> I have a question - how would I find the siblings of my grandfather Jose >> or the children of his parents? I'm guessing one has to look through all >> the possible years of birth and examine each record one at a time - yes? >> >> Thank you all again. What a great community of support! >> >> Diane >> >> >> >> On Saturday, September 22, 2018 at 7:24:19 AM UTC-4, [email protected] >> wrote: >>> >>> Whether its 1897 or 1898 (I agree with Cheri that it looks like 1898) I >>> can't seem to find this baptism in Faial da Terra. >>> >>> I did find what may be the marriage of his parents: >>> >>> Faial da Terra, 16 Feb 1887 >>> Groom: Jose Pereira de Resendes, 20 years old (would be age 53 or 54 in >>> 1920) exposto baptized in Povoacao (Mae de Deus) and given to Violante >>> de Medeiros of Faial to be raised. >>> Bride: Emilia Guilhermina da Conceicao, 25 years old (would be age 58 or >>> 59 in 1920), daughter of Jose da Costa and Maria Pacheco >>> Names and ages are close (not exact) matches. The father has both >>> parents unknown (exposto) instead of just an unknown father. >>> >>> Starts bottom left: >>> >>> >>> *http://culturacores.azores.gov.pt/biblioteca_digital/SMG-PV-FAIALDATERRA-C-1880-1889/SMG-PV-FAIALDATERRA-C-1880-1889_item1/P70.html* >>> >>> <http://culturacores.azores.gov.pt/biblioteca_digital/SMG-PV-FAIALDATERRA-C-1880-1889/SMG-PV-FAIALDATERRA-C-1880-1889_item1/P70.html> >>> Bill Seidler >>> >>>> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Azores Genealogy" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected] <javascript:>. >> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/azores. >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Azores Genealogy" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/azores.
