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Archiver > AZORES > 2001-08 > 0996847500


From: Ruy Cardoso <>
Subject: [AZORES-L] Re: Extracting data
Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 07:05:00 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <200108031300.f73D0mq15037@lists5.rootsweb.com>


Hello, all.

As someone who has extracted thousands of records
(8000+ baptisms, 2000+ marriages, 6000+ deaths), I
can't help but chime in on this subject.

I think Eloise had it right in her suggestion to start
with good copies of a few records that lack
abbreviations and that have clear handwriting (I say a
few because having multiple records makes it easier to
see the common elements). Usually these good records
are much more common in recent years, say after 1850
or so. As you go back in time, the use of
abbreviations becomes much more frequent, the
information provided becomes a bit thinner, the
quality of paper and ink is worse, and the records of
course have had more time to degrade.

For those of you who think "grammar" is a scary word,
let me say that I don't think it is even necessary to
have a good grasp of Portuguese grammar, although of
course it can and will help you in many situations. I
say this because the wording on so many records is
often nearly constant for decades at a time, and
knowing only a few key phrases can get you very very
far. For example, the baptisms so often start with
wording like the following (but in Portuguese, of
course):

"On this __ day of the month of __ in the year __ I
solemly baptized __, who was born on the __ day of
this same month, legitimate son/dau of [father's
name], [father's occupation], and [mother's name],
[mother's occupation], natives of and living in
[place], paternal grandson/dau of [names] and maternal
grandson/dau of [names]..."

Oh, sure, there will occasionally be some extra phrase
thrown in there to cover atypical situations -- a
father dying before a child was born, for example --
but these only come up once in a while, and you can
always make note of them and ask the list what they
mean. And there can be confusion between names of
people and names of places, especially when the
preposition "de" (of) is involved. And when a record
says that people are from some particular place, it
can often be hard to tell just which people are from
that place. But these sorts of problems can apply to
genealogical records of any kind, in any language, so
you shouldn't be surprised that they occur in
Portuguese parish records.

As far as vocabulary goes, the most important items
are numbers (for dates and years, which are often
spelled out); names of months; words for units of time
(day, month, year); words for family relationships
(mother, father, daughter, son, grandparents,
widow/er, etc.); words for life events (birth,
marriage, death); common occupations; words for types
of places (parish, town, locale, diocese, etc.); a few
variants of the key phrases that get repeated over and
over in each record; and the word "digo", which
indicates a correction to what was just written. The
most important words can probably be captured in a
list of a few dozen, maybe a hundred or two, but
certainly not more than that.

Now I don't mean to make it sound as if this is easy,
and it can be very discouraging if you start with a
poor-quality record since you will then have extra
obstacles to deal with. Further, phrasing in the
records does change over time (though usually quite
slowly) and across locations. But it can very much be
done even if you know no Portuguese, and you will find
yourself getting faster and faster at it with
practice, especially if the same person is recording
all the records you happen to be examining. (While I
haven't studied this precisely, it certainly seems to
have been common for the same priest to be in place
for twenty or thirty years in some locations.)

Of course, there are often times when it is more
efficient to pay someone to do research for you. I
spend so much time focused on a couple of parishes
that I can't devote too much time to researching some
of the others where my ancestors originated, so I have
occasionally used researchers and have generally been
quite happy with the results.

But try to do some yourself -- you may be surprised at
how quickly it becomes (relatively) easy -- and good
luck.

Ruy Cardoso

> Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 20:09:00 EDT
> From:
> To:
> Subject: Re: [AZORES-L] Extracting data-Reading
> Handwriting
>
> Listers: I know several people who have done and
> are doing their own
> research. These people know absolutely no Portguese,
> nor did they ever study
> any foreign language. With a genealogical word list
> and a dictionary and
> copies of translations they have learned to read the
> records. And in time
> going back they have learned the abbreviations.
>
> [snip]
>
> So don't give up. Get a copy of a good record from
> the late 1800s. No
> abbreviations and the writing is pretty good. Get a
> good dictionary and the
> Genealogical Word List. Try your best and then ask
> the List for help. Also
> some on this list have done translations of records,
> line by line in English
> and in Portuguese. Ask and for the cost of postage
> listers will share.
> And, too, not all records were poorly written. Some
> priest had beautiful
> handwriting.
>
> Eloise
>


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