Penny, Your ancestor was born c. 1860 in Calhetas, Sao Miguel. That's on the north side of the island, at that skinniest part, just west of Rabo de Peixe. It's emerald green (on my monitor) on this map: http://pg.azores.gov.pt/drac/cca/ig/mapas/smiguel.gif Calhetas is the freguesia (village) which is part of the council of Ribeira Grande. The FHL catalog number for baptisms covering that year is 1438074.
The death certificate probably asked for the mother's maiden name. Portuguese women didn't always use a surname, so the answer was that the informant didn't know, therefore the whole name got recorded as unknown. To find his mother's name, you will have to search probably 1862 going back looking for every child born named something like Gervasio/Gervazo born to a father named Francisco Telles. Once you find him and obtain the mother's name, you can check every baptism born to that couple and find his siblings that way. There are training documents on the Azores Genweb to help train your eyes on how to read (bumble your way though) a baptism: http://homepage.mac.com/kmacardoza/Genealogy/HowTo_Part_3a.html#reading To learn some Portuguese words, you can purchase the Portuguese Word List from your FHC or you can view it here: http://tinyurl.com/b2q9zx Cheri Mello Listowner, Azores-Gen Researching: Vila Franca, Ponta Garca, Ribeira Quente, R. das Tainhas, Achada --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. Follow the confirmation directions when they arrive. For more options, such as changing to List, Digest, Abridged, or No Mail (vacation) mode, log into your Google account and visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Azores. Click in the blue area on the right that says "Join this group" and it will take you to "Edit my membership." -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
