Hi Leonor B, Many Portuguese didn't have last names historically, especially women.
It's hard to follow your story as we all have 2 grandfathers and 2 grandmothers. It's not always stated in your story which if paternal and which is maternal. You may just find it easier to use their names when dealing with a genealogy group or list. Typing out "My paternal grandfather" gets to be tedious and it's hard for the reader to follow. Your brother says your paternal grandfather (pai incognito) is Joao Afonso de Oliveira. This would be on your mainland (Aljezur or Algrave) side. There's 2 ways to test this theory. You can find a descendant of Joao Afonso de Oliviera and get them to DNA test and see if you match. Or your brother could take a Y-DNA test (that's your father's father's father's or the top of the pedigree chart) and wait for a match to come along, from someone else who has built the paper trail beyond your Joao Afonso de Oliveira. The only company that tests Y-DNA for genealogy and provides matching is Family Tree DNA. You mention you have tested your DNA. With which company? If it's not FTDNA, you need to transfer over (it's free and so are the matches). Fish in as many ponds as you can to find those cousins. Or you (and your brother) can test on FTDNA's platform. Yes, you and your brother should both DNA test as you have inherited different quarters of your grandparents' DNA. Expostos or expostas don't have records in the Azores. Not too sure what the continent has. When working the records in the Azores, if a parent (or both) come forward and claim the baby, it may be noted in that baby's baptism margin. Sometimes the church kept a separate book of legitimizations. If you are using Tombo.pt to access the records, it's easy to tell which churches kept these books. I don't know why your ancestor names one couple and then another as her parents. You could have inadvertently have the wrong record. Maybe your ancestor gave the name of the couple that raised her (although that's unlikely in the Azorean records - they just usually say pais incognitos), or maybe she knew who they were and was naming the real ones. It's really hard to actually know. I think the best strategy for you would be to work from the known to the unknown. Work the lines with the known parents to gain the experience and search techniques that you need. Once you are getting pretty comfortable with your research skills, then go tackle those mystery lines. Good luck, Cheri Mello Listowner, Azores-Gen Researching: São Miguel island: Vila Franca, Ponta Garca, Ribeira Quente, Ribeira das Tainhas, Achada On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 12:51 PM <leonor.bert...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello, > I am new to the group and to Genealogy in general. I was always curious > but I finally took the plunge in January. I am hoping to get some guidance > from those more experienced. Here's a little bit of my story: > > My father is from Aljezur (small town in Algarve). I do not know much > about his family, he went to Sao Miguel, Azores in the army, where he met > my mother. Money was tight, so we never met his family. The story is that > my grandmother worked in a brothel or was a lady of the night. She had 3 > kids, 2 boys and a girl, I believe. My birth certificate says that my > paternal grandfather is unknown, however, my brother's says that it was > someone by the name of Joao Afonso de Oliveira. My brother is 11 years > older than I, I'm not sure what happened in those 11 years that made my > father forget who his father was. My father did not have a last name, his > name was Armando Joao. Myself and my siblings were given the last name of > Oliveira. To complicate matters, my mother did not have a last name either > but she went by (Maria Amelia) Soares Manteiga. I have been able to find a > lot of baptismal certificates which explains some things, I have even been > able to connect with a 4th cousin by DNA and through our trees. If this > wasn't complicated enough, I found out that my great grandmother (on my > mother's side) was an "exposta". Some documents she lists one couple as her > parents and in other documents she names a different couple. Both couples > are different from her godparents. I would like to know if there are any > records, that you know of, for the "expostos", who raised them? Is there a > database I can look at? There is a blank from the time my great grandmother > was baptized and when she got married. My grandmother (my mother's mom) > lived in the Azil for 4 years after her husband died. She had 4 young > children and could not afford to raise them on her own so the entire family > lived in the Azil until my grandmother remarried. Is there any way for me > to find out any more information about this? I was born in Sao Miguel, I > have been in Canada for bout 36 years, I am fluent in Portuguese but I am > having a difficult time with this, I think it's because I am doing the > wrong searches, or lack of experience. Thank you in advance!! > > -- > 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 azores+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > 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 azores+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/azores.
