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Archiver > AZORES > 2001-08 > 0996772356


From: "TerryO at work" <>
Subject: [AZORES-L] Extracting data
Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 13:12:36 -0400
References: <006501c11adf$c0ebe9c0$bd9accd1@sebastao>


From: sebastao <>
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2001 7:14 PM

> As far as extracting records it is not difficult if you are doing it
yourself or if you know someone > in the islands. We all have someone in the
family that can decipher the language I
> am sure.

Cheryl: For me, extracting information was next to impossible. All the
people in my family who spoke Portuguese are long gone, and those in my
family who were born in the Azores were illiterate when they came here. One
of my biggest problems was just in reading the handwriting. My grandparents
were born in 1973 and 1875. Their baptismal certificates are written in a
florid "older" style of handwriting, and many words and even many names are
abbreviated. What's worse is that families tended to name all the girls
Maria, and when you get a name as common as Mello, sorting through all the
possible people who could be the correct Maria de Mello is not easy. The
person reading the document needs to extract a lot more information than
just the name of the person being researched. Someone like me would have to
spend many hours just deciphering the handwriting and then discover it was
the wrong Maria de Mello.

I am one of the people who has paid for help in this area even though, after
a long time of searching, I did locate a distant cousin who can give some
help with the records. He is a college professor, no longer lives in the
Azores, and simply doesn't have time to sit in the archives extracting
records specifically for me. He extracts the ones that are for himself, and
when they cross my line, I can use them.

What someone like Doug has to offer is the extra information that neither I
nor my relatives could figure for ourselves. For example, I knew that the
college professor was a relative of mine, but I had no idea where our family
histories crossed or connected. Within a few minutes of looking at the
data, Doug was able to identify the connection. In addition, when
researching my grandparents, Doug pointed out that, though there was no
mention of it on their marriage certificate, they were 2nd cousins, both
having had a set of great-grandparents in common.. Doug was also able to
help me untangle the confusing family connection that goes like this:

My grandmother (Maria Balbina Machado Ormonde) and grandfather (Manoel José
de Mello) were 2nd cousins.
My grandmother's 2nd cousin (José) married my grandfather's sister (Julia)
but José and Julia were not related.
My grandmother's brother (André) married the José's 2nd cousin who was not
related at all to my grandmother or grandfather.

I would be surprised at anyone being able to figure out those relationships
without having a huge database and knowledge of the village where these
people lived, and Doug has that knowledge. Those of you who are closer to
literate Portuguese relatives and who are familiar with Portuguese
handwriting may not have trouble with the records, but there are millions of
us out there who don't have those connections and whose family research will
bog down completely if it were not for the services of people like Doug.

Let me offer to you the example of research in my husband's family. His
father is from Russia and his mother's family from Poland. The names were
not spelled in the American way, and research is horrendous. I have yet to
identify father back than my father-in-law's verbal account of his
grandparents. The language barrier is too great. On the other hand, if
there were a Polish or Russian version of someone like Doug available, my
research there might have progressed much farther.

Terry Ostrach



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