David, I too, have some of Pat Amarals info, turns out she was my fathers first cousin. I never met her, I only just found out a year ago my Portuguese roots were from the Azores (long story) Anyway I did some scouting around and found the APGHS is no longer functioning (I far as I know) But I found that all of her work was originally sent to donated to the Taunton Library. Then sent over to UMASS According to Sonia Pacheco, her contact info below, she told me this:
The APGHS collection is comprised primarily of their book collection; the 30,000 number that I saw at one point in this email thread refers to a series of index cards that they put together trying to document all known Portuguese individuals in the United States. There are *many* problems with those records, and I generally do not recommend researchers use them unless they're absolutely stuck on an individual and are grasping at straws for a lead. We do indeed know the correct name of the collection that was donated to us; note that it was Susanne who got it wrong ;) Again, several reasons were at play as to why the collection was donated to us and not to another public library, the most significant being that we are the only archives in the United States who's mission is to document Portuguese-American history and therefore it made sense that we be the permanent home of the records. The materials that they have on individual families (a limited number) has been cataloged and is searchable using our library catalog. Please let me know if you have any other questions, Sonia ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, I hope this helps, good luck in your search. Sonia also told me that “maybe” one day they would ever digitize the collection? We are going to the Azores this May 7th, I am very excited since with the help of the group and Pat Amaral’s tenacity I have connected with family there and will visit the home of my Great Grandfather and see the birthplace my grandfather Greg Dias / Furtado..... Ihlas Faial/Pico Contact info for: Sónia Pacheco Librarian Archivist Ferreira-Mendes Portuguese American Archives Claire T. Carney Library University of Massachusetts Dartmouth 285 Old Westport Road N. Dartmouth, MA 02747 Tel. 508-999-8695 Fax 508-999-8424 Email [email protected] Web site: http://www.lib.umassd.edu/archives/Archives.html From: David Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2013 1:13 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [AZORES-Genealogy] Pat Amaral: Stone Fleet and Conversos When I started working on the family history as a teen in the '70s, I maintained for a while a lively correspondence with Pat Amaral, one of the leaders in establishing Portuguese-American genealogy. I understand that she passed away some years ago. Pat informed me that my g'g'grandfather Antonio Hurd / António da Terra had served the Union during the Civil War, as a sailor in the Stone Fleet (sometimes called the "Great Stone Fleet"). (For those not familiar with this attempt to blockade Confederate harbors, here's an overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Fleet) I have combed through Union records (from during the period as well as later records regarding veterans and pensioners) but found no mention of my g'g'grandfather under any conceivable variant of his anglicized name or of his original Portuguese name. I'm thinking that perhaps the sailors of the Stone Fleet were never formally enlisted in the Union Navy... I have my side of my correspondence with Pat in storage in a different city, but as I recall she didn't indicate what her source was. Does anyone else here have an ancestor who (actually or allegedly) sailed with the Stone Fleet, and thus has familiarity with the relevant sources? And/or does anyone know what Pat did with her source materials collection -- i.e., is it in a library somewhere, or otherwise accessible to researchers? She also insisted to me (again, iirc, without naming her source(s)) that certain of my families were of known Converso descent, e.g., Silveira Cardoso from Lajes do Pico. For this reason too I'd love to know whether her source materials have been preserved and are accessible somewhere. Thanks in advance, David da Silva Cornell Miami, FL Researching the following surnames: Faial - Terra (unknown freguesia(s)) Flores - Freitas, Lourenço, Coelho (unknown freguesia(s)) Pico - Silveira Cardoso, Macedo, Machado, Pereira Madruga, Ferreira, Cardoso, Cardoso Machado, Vieira, Bettencourt, Dutra, Castanho, Homem, Goulart, Quaresma, Moniz, Barreto, Silveira, Mancebo, Pereira, Álvares (all Lajes do Pico) S. Jorge - Silva, Botelho, Azevedo, Cardoso (Urzelina); Silva, Azevedo, Cardoso (Santo António in Norte Grande) -- For 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." --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Azores Genealogy" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/azores?hl=en. -- For 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." --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Azores Genealogy" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/azores?hl=en.
