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Portuguese Genealogical Research
By Cheri Mello
Introduction
Genealogical research is concerned with 3 things: a name, a date, and a place. These 3 items need to be gathered for each birth, marriage and death of each ancestor you have. If you have American branches, I strongly recommend that you do those first. Dealing with the immigrant involves some little used sources. You may not even find your immigrant on the frequently used sources. It can become frustrating. To do Portuguese research, you will need an island and a town or village. At some point, your research will lead you overseas. But let's start at the beginning, here in America...
The Beginning
1. Charts and Forms - You will need to keep pedigree or ancestor charts as well as family group sheets. Begin by filling these out in pencil and then in ink once the event has been confirmed. Each person on your pedigree/ancestor chart will also appear on a family group chart as a spouse and then on another chart as a child. Write it neat the first time!
2. Collecting Information - You will need to interview any and all relatives: parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. You will need to go back an reinterview them again (at a later date, of course!) Sometimes, you will ask something in an interview, and they will not remember. However, it will be enough to get the memory working, and your subject may remember something about that at a later date. You may wish to tape record these interviews and then transcribe them later, verbatim. Some techniques you may wish to use to jog your subject's memory are: world events (did that happen before or after World War II?, etc.) and "How old were you?" These seem to be particularly useful when the subject says, "I don't know. I don't remember."
3. Bibles - If you are fortunate enough to have literate ancestors, don't overlook the family Bible. Dates and places may be recorded in the front or in the beginning of the New Testament. Make sure you copy the date from the front cover of the Bible. If the Bible is copyrighted 1954 and the dates written in the Bible are from the early 1900s, then you know that the dates were not recorded at the time of the event, but at sometime after. They are, therefore, relying on someone's memory, which may or may not be accurate.
4. Genealogical groups - If descendants are still in an area with a high Portuguese population, you may want to check and see if a genealogical group in that area exists, and put a query into their newsletter. For example, if New Bedford had a New Bedford Genealogical Society (but they don't), you may want to put a query in their newsletter (looking for the parents of Jose Silva....). You can find this information from Everton's "The Handybook for Genealogists", or "The Genealogist's Address Book." Both are probably available at your local library.
5. County histories - If your ancestors have been here a while you may be able to find them in the index of a county history book. If you do find them in one, photocopy the page(s) that your ancestor appears on, and also the title and copyright date pages. You may also want to write down which library you got the book from. These county history books can be obtained from the LDS church, a local genealogical library, or the public library may have a few as well (the Los Angeles Public Library has a whole floor devoted to history and genealogy with books from all over the U.S.)
6. Documentation - Documentation comes in 2 forms: primary and secondary.
a. Primary documentation - A primary documentation is something that is generated AT THE TIME OF the event, such as a death, marriage, or birth certificate. You need only 1 one of these to prove a date.
b. Secondary documentation - A secondary documentation is something that is generated AFTER the event. You will need to get 2-3 of these to agree with the date that you are trying to prove. Some secondary sources are: tombstones, family histories, delayed birth certificates, county histories, books of marriage records. Weak secondary sources are considered circumstantial evidence.
Sources: "Unpuzzling Your Past" by Emily Anne Croom and the Author's own research experiences.
© 2003 Cheri Mello
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