ancestry of vicente jose pereira

There is one more of Jeff's fourth great grandparents on Aldina's (great grandmother) paternal line to write about.  It is Vicente Jose Pereira, husband to Anna Jacinta, the subject of my last post. Vicente's was born in 1789 to Manoel Pereira and Magdalena Roza.

Finding Vicente's Death Record
As with his wife Jacinta, I searched for Vicente's death record in the parish of Matriz, where they lived most of their family life.  I knew that he died before his wife as she was listed as a widow in her death record.  I found his death occurred on March 24, 1849, when he was about 61 years old.  The death record states he is married to Anna, but the second name for Anna is difficult to read.  I am not sure it is Jacinta in this record.

Finding Vicente's Baptismal Record
Vicente and Anna's marriage record states that Vicente was baptized in Conceicao, Ribeira Grande, which is where I found his baptismal record in 1789.  I wrote a little bit about finding this record and the conflicting age information that the marriage record contains in an earlier post.  This baptismal record; however, confirms his parents' names of Manoel Pereira and Magdalena Roza, and also states that they were baptized in the same parish of Conceicao.  I was able to find both Manoel and Magdalena's baptismal records (see below) and their marriage record, all in Conceicao. These records gave me Vicente's grandparents' names to research back another generation.

Manoel Pereira's Ancestry

Manoel Pereira was born July 31, 1762 in Conceicao, Ribeira Grande, Sao Miguel.  From this record I now have his parents' names and where they were baptized.  Manoel's mother, Catharina da Costa da Trindade, was also born in Conceicao, Ribeira Grande.  His father; however, Vicente Pereira, was born in a different area on the island of Sao Miguel; in Fenais da Luz, Ponta Delgada.  These villages are both on the northern part of the island, only about 8 miles apart.



I was able to find Vicente and Catharina's marriage record, which does have their parents' names on it, but I am finding it difficult to read.

Vicente's parents look like Antonio Pereira and Luzia Almeida.  I was able to find Vicente's death record, which gave an estimated birth year of 1729.  I spent some time browsing the records in Fenais da Luz from 1723-1732, but I was unable to find a baptism for Vicente.  I also browsed through the 1716-1729 Fenais de Luz marriage records, but was not able to find a marriage record for an Antonio Pereira and Luzia Almeida.  It is strange to me that I cannot find either record, which makes me think I either have the dates wrong or the wrong place of baptism for Vicente.

Catharina's parents are much more difficult for me to decipher from their marriage record.  Her name, Catharina, seems to be written twice on the record, then her father's name might be Jose da Costa and her mother's name looks like Maria do Reis.  With these possible parents' names, I then browsed through baptismal records for Catharina in Conceicao, but did not have much luck finding anything.  There was one Catharina which was a possibility, born in 1727, to Joseph da Costa and Maria Rodriques.  I am not confident enough to include this record in the family tree.  I did look for a Jose da Costa and Maria do Reis, and a Joseph da Costa and Maria Rodriques marriage in Conceicao between the years 1714 and 1727, but also had no luck  With the indeterminate names of Catharina's parents, I probably am not going to find much more information on this family.



Magdalena Roza's Ancestry

Magdalena Roza was born October 31, 1762, in Conceicao, Ribeira Grande, Sao Miguel.  Her parents are Antonio Dios Clemente from Conceicao and Maria Francisca from Matriz, also in Ribeira Grande.

Magdalena's parents, Antonio and Maria, were married on October 15, 1759 in Conceicao.

Maria's parents are Jose da Costa Japoya and Agada Vieira (deceased). I was able to find Jose and Agada's marriage record bringing the line back another generation.  Jose da Costa Japoya and Agada Vieira Carneiro were married on July 28, 1723 in Matriz, Ribeira Grande.  Their parents are Manoel Lopes Japoya (deceased) and Susanna da Costa, and Joao Carneiro and Maria Viera.  These are Jeff's 8th great grandparents.  I then exchanged a great deal of emails with JR from the Azores Google Group, who had many more marriages for Maria's ancestors.  With his help, I was able to go back with one line to the marriage of Jeff's 13th great grandparents, Jorge Gonsalves and Maria Mendes in the parish of Matriz, Ribeira Grande, Sao Miguel on January 15, 1546.  The marriage record only lists Maria Mendes' mother, as Isabella Mendes (Jeff's 14th great grandmother).   The chart for this line is too large to include here, but here is a link to Magdalena's pedigree.  Wikipedia has an interesting excerpt on the history of Ribeira Grande, which includes some of Maria's ancestry's surnames of the 1500s, such as Gonsalves, Carneiro, and Alvares.  Maria's line was probably some of the first settlers of Ribeira Grande on the island.      

I also had some success with Antonio's line.   On Antonio and Maria's marriage record, Antonio is listed as a widow to Anna Francisca, with no parents named.  In order to find Antonio's parent's, I needed to find his first marriage.  It took a while, but I found that he was married 3 times before he married Maria.  One year with his first wife, one year with his second, and 20 years with his third wife.  His last wife, Maria (Jeff's ancestor), was around 30 years younger than Antonio.  She had at least two children with Antonio.  I am not sure how many other children he had, I will have to browse through many records to find them. These are his marriages:

1. Antonio's marriage to Maria Theresa, in Conceicao on February 7, 1737.  This marriage record has Antonio's parents as Joseph Cavaglo and Maria Clemente (deceased).
2. Antonio's marriage to Theresa Francisca, in Matriz on January 6, 1738.
3. Antonio's marriage to Anna Francisca, in the parish of Matriz on April 30 1739.    
4. Antonio's marriage to Maria Francisca, in Matriz on October 15, 1759.   

I was only able to find two more generations back for Antonio on his paternal side; but with the help of JR, mentioned above, I was able to go back much further on his maternal line.  We found ancestors back to the mid 1500's all in the same parish of Matriz in Ribeira Grande on the Island of Sao Miguel, which includes 4 sets of Jeff's 12th great grandparents.  Again, to follow this line, the link to Magdalena's pedigree is here.

I began this series of posts on my husband's Azorean ancestors a year ago, in March of 2015.  I started with his great grandmother, Aldina Pereira, who was born in 1889, in the parish of Matriz, Ribeira Grande, Sao Miguel.  When I began, I had no idea the records would lead me back to the 1500's in the same parish.  The past 14 posts only discussed Aldina's paternal line.  My next series of posts may be her maternal line, starting with Maria da Paixao Moreira, also born in Matriz, Ribeira Grande, Sao Miguel.

  

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.