Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The site indicated in the message above requires login, but when I tried to indicate "Souza" family, there was an error report saying that that family was already registered. I changed to "Sousa" and it was accepted! Incidentally, my family members have spelt the surname both ways, indifferently. In my family only I have kept it with "z" since my primary school days. By the way, Sousas / Souzas, even in the same village do not belong to the same family. Also Sousas in different villages do not belong to the same caste. Best way to trace family tree is to start with oral traditions as initial leads. After that by checking on the village community vangodd records. Family property records, judicial "inventarios" of minors, ordination records of priests in the family, are some other very useful sources. Sometimes it is just luck that helps! While casually looking through Daman records in the Goa State Archives, I chanced to find some papers of my first converted ancestor in Moirá to be wrongly bound with that volume! It was a petition of Shantappa Kamat (baptised as Diogo de Souza), of the fifth vangodd of Moirá, directed to King Phillip of Spain and Portugal! It narrates briefly his background in old Kanada script. The State interpreter has it translated into Portuguese. King Phillip replied to his request favourably. All this in 1619. Teotonio R. de Souza
