I'm afraid I now need to join the wave of folks here seeking help to decipher a long-ago priest's handwriting...in this case, from the 19th Century, from among the baptismal records for Urzelina on S. Jorge.
I believe I have found the baptismal record for my maternal grandfather's father, Manuel Ignacio da Silva / Manuel Enos Sylvia. As an interesting historical sidenote, my great-grandfather operated a photography studio on Dartmouth Street in New Bedford, in his house right next to Rural Cemetery, with his clientele being the Portuguese community of the area. Apparently he became something of a de facto chronicler of the early 20th C. Portuguese community of New Bedford, because several relatives have reported often meeting new Portuguese- American acquaintances who, when they learn of the link to Manuel E. Sylvia, haul out old family photos taken by him, still in the cardboard frame marked with his studio's name. In any event, all we had known was his birth date, that he had come from S. Jorge aged around 18, and that he was the illegitimate son of one Ignacia, who in the U.S. later married an American named Smitz and disappeared from family memory but who had been a teenaged domestic when she was supposedly impregnated by her boss, whom the oral tradition in the family referred to as Eduardo da Silva, allegedly a judge or lawyer with a wife and family. Manuel's wife, Luiza da Silva / Louiza Sylvia, likewise was born illegitimate, to an Isabel who later married in the U.S. a Bento d'Oliveira, she also allegedly having been a teenaged domestic impregnated by the master of the house, in this case remembered as a Jorge da Silva, who was allegedly a lawyer or judge. (I.e., the two purported fathers, Eduardo and Jorge, were remembered as being a lawyer and a judge, but memories faded as to which was which.) In the CCA baptismal records for Urzelina I came across the following record I believe to be Manuel (because the birth date matches and he was from S. Jorge): Urzelina, Baptismos 1871-1879 > Livro1 > sjg.ve.ur.b- Livro 1874.002 http://pg.azores.gov.pt/drac/cca/biblioteca_digital/SJVUB1871-1879/SJVUB1871-1879_item1/P50.html I have transcribed as follows (using the original 19th C. orthography) what I could make out (and I read Portuguese fine, so the meaning isn't a problem, just the handwriting), but try as hard as I can to decipher it, some of the text remains inscrutable to me (i.e., wherever I have question marks): No. 1 Manoel Aos veinte oito dias do mes de Janeiro do anno de mil oito centos setenta e quatro n’esta Igreja Parochial de São Mattheus da Urzelina, Con- celho da Villa das Velas, Diocese d’Angra ???? ???????????? de sexo masculino, a quem dei o nome de Manoel, e que foi bapti- zado em caza, por perigo de vida, por Maria Thereza ???, moradora d’esta freguezia, filho natural de ?? e nasceu n’esta freguezia nas seis horas da tarde do dia veinte seis do referido mes e anno, filho natural de Ignacia Augusta Januaria, solteira, ????, natural d’esta freguezia ??? é parochiana, moradora no Caminho de [Cima?], neto paterno de avós [sic? why not "avôs"?] occultos, e materno de [José or João?] [Brum? Botelho?], e de Francisca Ignacia. Foi padrinho Au- gusto de [Moniz?], solteiro, trabalhador, natural da freguezia de Santa Cruz, Concelho da Lagôa na Ilha de São Miguel, Diocese supra referido, morador nesta freguezia de São Mattheus, ?? ????? da Nossa Senhora das Dores com cuja corôa ?? cabeça do baptizado José Antonio da Silveira Barcellos, ???, ?????? ???? d’esta freguezia, os quais todos sei ??? os proprios ??????????? em duplicado este ???, que depois de [dez?] dias ????? referido ???? e padrinho comigo e não ????????? ??????????????????????????????. O Conego Vigario Antonio [Nunes?] de ??? In addition, the reference to the padrinho from S. Miguel, Augusto the laborer, makes me wonder whether he was in fact the natural father. There's apparently no madrinha; would this have been unusual, naming a padrinho without a madrinha? I believe it was Pat Amaral who told me years ago that the biological father, if of some social stature, was often the padrinho, even when the father might be listed as pai incognito... Have others of you found that to be true? I'm fully prepared to accept that "Eduardo da Silva" and "Jorge da Silva," the judge and the lawyer, may simply be family history fictions created to soften the illegitimate births of Manuel and Luiza and raise their perceived status. Being the first known lawyer in my family, though, I confess part of me hopes one or both of them was a judge or lawyer, a kindred spirit across the years... But is anyone aware of how one could find out the names of all judges and lawyers on S. Jorge during, say, the 1870's? If I could find such a resource, I ought to be able to locate any Eduardo da Silva and Jorge da Silva, if they actually existed... I'm thinking of contacting the Ordem de Advogados in Ponta Delgada to see if they have records back that far for all of the islands, but thought I'd check here first rather than reinvent the wheel. Finally, if anyone has come across an Ignacia Smitz (possibly moved to California) or a Bento and Isabel d'Oliveira in their research, please let me know; it is an enduring mystery in our family as to what ever happened to my avô's two avós. Any assistance anyone can offer in deciphering the missing text (or in correcting my transcription), or with the other questions, would be ***greatly*** appreciated! Com os melhores cumprimentos. David da Silva Cornell Miami Beach, FL [email protected] ps -- Other lines of interest to me, in this case my maternal grandmother's lines: Macedo and Silveira Cardoso from Lajes do Pico, Pico (became "Enos" in the U.S. and Chile); Terra from Faial (became "Hurd" in R.I.); and Freitas, Coelho, and Lourenço from Flores. -- 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."
