antonio do amaral pereira

I have an approximate birth year for Antonio do Amaral Pereira of 1849 in the parish of Matriz, Ribeira Grande, Sao Miguel, Açores.  His baptismal record was easy to find with this information; Antonio was born on November 13, 1849 (from Centro de Conhecimento dos Açores (CCA) website).

baptismal record for Antonio do Amaral Pereira
Nossa Senhora da Estrella, Matriz, Ribeira Grande, Sao Miguel, Azores
This record gives us some new information, such as Antonio's grandparents.  The handwriting is difficult for me to read, but I have interpreted his paternal grandparents as Bento Soares and Josefa do Amaral and his maternal grandparents as Vicente Jose Pereira and Anna Jacinta (which shows the origin of the Pereira surname is indeed from Antonio's maternal grandfather and the Amaral name comes from his paternal grandmother).  There is also some information on the margins that I am unable to read. (UPDATE : I posted a question to the google Azores Genealogy group for a translation of the margin notes, it is Antonio's death date of 1937 in the parish of Conceição, Ribeira Grande).

pedigree chart for Aldina Pereira (updated)
Since I have been looking in the parish of Matriz, I thought it would be a good time to look in the 1800-1899 index from the CCA website for other baptisms that took place here in Antonio's line.  Now that I know his mother, Margareda Izabel's, parents' names, I could locate her in the index.  This index shows her baptism was recorded in register volume 37. 

I also tried looking for the marriage record of Antonio's parents, Antonio de Amaral and Margareda Izabel in both Achada and Matriz between the years 1837-1850.  I am not sure which parish they were married in, but I had no luck finding them in either parish register.  There is no index for marriages for these years, so I had to browse through the individual records.  (UPDATE: with help from the Azores Genealogy Google group, someone posted what I believe is their marriage record, names Antonio Jacinto de Amaral and Margarida Isabel Viera - I will write about this in my next post)

Antonio and Margareda also had another son Luiz that I happened upon while browsing for children of Antonio do Amaral Pereira and Maria Paixao.  I found Luiz's son Manuel's baptismal record.  Luiz is listed in the Matriz index for volume 47; I will have to look into that also.

I did try to find some more children of Antonio de Amaral and Margareda Izabel, but since the index is organized by first name and not year, it is not easy to scan for parents during a certain time frame.  I attempted to look for common Portuguese names to see if they had Antonio and Margareda as parents and I was able to find two additional children for this couple.  Maria born in 1848 and another Antonio born in 1843.  So I have found three siblings so far for Antonio do Amaral Pereira; Luiz, Antonio, and Maria. 

I am sure Antonio had more siblings than three, but I would have to browse the index or the actual records to find them.  I will try this when I have some more free time, and I thought I would focus on finding records that might be a little easier to locate.   As I mentioned above, I have the marriage record of Antonio de Amaral and Margareda Izabel, which will give me their approximate birth dates and enable me to find their baptismal records to bring the family back another generation.   

antonio do amaral pereira and maria da paixo

Below is a picture of Antonio do Amaral Periera and Maria da Paixao, my husband's 2nd great grandparents.  This picture was handed down to my husband, but I am not sure of its origin.


Antonio do Amaral Pereira and Maria da Paixao
Antonio do Amaral Pereira married Maria da Paixao on November 15, 1886, at the church Santíssimo Salvador do Mundo, in Ribeirinha, Ribeira Grande, Sao Miguel, Açores.  As I mentioned in my last post, Rick Pimentel directed me to their marriage record through the Azores Genealogy group.  A picture of the church they were married in is below.


Santíssimo Salvador do Mundo, Ribeirinha, Ribeira Grande, Sao Miguel, Açores

From Panoramio Google Maps: Kris Verhoeven

marriage record for Antonio do Amaral Pereira and Maria da Paixo Santíssimo Salvador do Mundo, in Ribeirinha, Ribeira Grande, Sao Miguel, Açores
Their marriage record gives Antonio's age as 37 and Maria's as 19.  This is a large age discrepancy, I am not sure if this was a normal occurrence or perhaps Antonio was married previously.  The ages at the time of marriage give the approximate date of birth for Antonio as 1849 and Maria as 1867. 

The record also states that Antonio's father, Antonio do Amaral, was a native of a different parish on the island, Achada.  Antonio's mother and Maria's father were both from the parish of Matriz, where all of Antonio's and Maria's children were baptized.  I did not highlight the part where it states which parishes the married couple were from, but Antonio was from Matriz and Maria was from the parish they were married in, Ribeirinha, as was Maria's mother.

One thing I have noticed from this marriage record is the naming traditions of the Azorean's is different than other areas I have researched.  For instance, Antonio do Amaral Pereira's parents are Antonio de Amaral and Margareda Izabel.  Neither have the surname Pereira, which is what Antonio includes in all of the records I have found for him.  Researching the Azores records are new to me, so I searched google for some explanations.  It seems that surnames were not always used and that they could either come from the father or mother's side of the family.  I did find one record which states Margareda Izabel's name as Margareda Izabel Pereira (Anibal Pereira's baptismal record - Antonio do Amaral Pereira's son), so the surname does seem to have come from Antonio's maternal line.

This marriage record gives enough information to find Antonio do Amaral Pereira's baptismal record around 1849 in the parish of Achada and Maria da Paixao's baptismal record around 1867 in the parish of Ribeirinha, both on the island of Sao Miguel, Açores.  My next post will focus on finding Antonio's baptism; perhaps showing the origin of the Pereira surname.

aldina pereira francisco part 3 (parents and siblings)

Aldina Pereira's birth record from the church, Nossa Senhora da Estrella, in Matriz, Ribeira Grande, Sao Miguel, Azores, was the gateway record to finding more about her family on the island of Sao Miguel.  With help from the Azores Genealogy Group, I was able to transcribe the record enough to obtain her parents' and grandparents' names and the churches they were baptized in, as seen below in her pedigree chart.  Rick Pimentel also directed me to Aldina's parent's marriage record, which I will write about in my next post.

Below is a map (google maps) of the island of Sao Miguel, where the Pereira family is from.
     

pedigree for Aldina Pereira Franciso
I wanted to see if I could find some siblings of Aldina by browsing through the records for the church Nossa Senhora da Estrella.  I knew she had a brother Anibal, which I found quickly since I had a birth year of about 1886.  I browsed through many years looking for their parents' names in the baptismal records, until I came across an index to baptisms for this church through the Google Groups, Azores Genealogy.  The index looks to be from the University of the Azores, and breaks the years up into two books for baptisms, Baptismos Livro 1 (1860-1884) and Baptismos Livro 2 (1885-1910).  The index is organized alphabetically by child's first name, then alphabetical by parents' name.  I still had to browse through many pages, but it was much quicker and easier to look through this table than to sift through each baptismal page looking for parents' names.  Amazingly, I found 10 children for Antonio do Amaral Pereira and Maria da Paixao.  Their last child, Maria, was born in 1908, when Antonio was 59 years old and Maria was 41. 

family chart for Antonio do Amaral Pereira and Maria da Paixao