vicente jose pereira and anna jacinta - 4th great grandparents

I first started writing about my husband's Portuguese ancestors almost a year ago with some posts about his great grandmother, Aldina Pereira, who was born in Ribeira Grande on the Island of Sao Miguel in the Azores.  I then wrote about some of her paternal line, which included one set of Jeff's 4th great grandparents, Bento Soares and Josefa do Amaral.  For this post I am going to focus on my husband's other set of 4th great grandparents on Aldina's paternal line.  I was able to obtain their names, Vicente Jose Pereira and Anna Jacinta, from their grandson's, Antonio do Amaral Pereira, baptismal record (Jeff's 2nd great grandfather).



Family - Children
I wrote about Vicente and Anna's daughter Margarida in an earlier post and found that she was born in Matriz, Ribeira Grande, São Miguel, Açores.  Knowing what area this family was from helped me with my next step, which was to browse through the Matriz parish index (one of the few parishes that have an index available online) to find other children of Vicente and Anna.  I found a total of 8; the first one, Manoel born in 1810 and the last, Maria, in 1834.  All of the children's baptismal records that I have found for Vicente and Anna do have the same information on them with the parents' and grandparents' names.  Below is their family chart.



Marriage
With Vicente and Anna's children's birth dates, I was able to narrow down a possible marriage date for Vicente and Anna.  I was guessing they were married around 1809 in the Ribeira Grande area.  I started with the year 1807 and looked through the parish registers for the areas of Matriz, Conceição, and Rabo de Peixe.  Since I was not able to find their marriage I took to the Azores Google Group and posted to see if anyone had any suggestions.  Someone was able to find their marriage in 1806 in the parish of Conceição, Ribeira Grande  - if only I had looked one year earlier.  I am a little surprised however that they were married for over three years before they had their first child; unless they had their first child in the parish of Conceição, where they were married.  I have not looked through these records yet.

This marriage does provide some information which does not seem to fit in with this family.  The marriage record states that Vicente's parents are Manoel Pereira and Magdalena Rosa; which are the same names listed in Margarida Isabel Pereira's baptismal record as her grandparents.  This marriage record also has the correct parents for Anna Jacinta; which is, father unknown and mother is Francisca Ignacia.  The problem comes from the ages the marriage record lists in the margins.  Vicente's age is listed as 27, and Anna is 22 in 1806, the year of their marriage.  However; if Anna was 22 in 1806, she would have been 50 years old when she had her last daughter Maria in 1834 and Vicente would have been 55. These ages are unlikely, but still possible.  Finding their baptismal records would help solve these age issues.

Birth
I was able to find Vicente and Anna's birth location from their daughter's baptismal record, Margarida Isabel Pereira.  Vicente was born in Conceição, Ribeira Grande, Sao Miguel, Açores and Anna Jacinta was born in Rabo de Peixe, Ribeira Grande, Sao Miguel, Açores.

Now knowing which parish to look through, I found a Vicente baptised to a Manoel Pereira and Magdalena Rosa in 1789 in Conceição, Ribeira Grande; which would make Vicente 17 when he was married, not 27.  It seems probable that the ages were written incorrectly on the marriage record.  To further confirm birth date, I think I found his death record, which states he was 61 in 1849, which would make his birth date around 1788.

I have not been able to find a baptismal record that matches perfectly for Anna Jacinta.  The closest I have found is Anna born in 1791 to a Francisca de Jesus.  If this is Anna, she would have been only 15 at the time of her marriage in 1806; which is possible.  This may also explained why they did not have children right away if she was so young.  But this baptismal record has the mother's second name as de Jesus, not Ignacia like all the other records.  This discrepancy does not mean the record is not Anna's as second names change in the portuguese documents frequently; however, it does not help confirm it is the correct record.  I did find another Anna born in 1783 to a married couple, mother's name Francisca Ignacia.  But according to all the other records, Anna's father is unknown; so I find this record more unlikely.   I did find Anna's death record at the age of 68 in 1860, which would give Anna a birth year of about 1792.  This matches the first baptismal record I found for Anna.

After finding these baptismal and death records, it seems to me that the ages on their marriage record are incorrect.  This would mean Vicente was 17 and Anna was 15.  These are young ages to be married, but I have seen other marriages with spouses this young.  Perhaps Anna felt the need to marry at such a young age because her situation may not have been great, especially if she was living with her single mother who had her out of wedlock.