Joanne, if I may, I'd like to offer a "friendly amendment" to your comment below... Santo Christo is the mother church of all the Portuguese churches in the *City* of Fall River, not in the Diocese. The first Portuguese Roman Catholic parish in not just that diocese but in all of North America was St. John the Baptist in New Bedford. Santo Christo was formed precisely because St. John's was too far for the Fall River Portuguese to travel to conveniently.
By the way, tragically, the Diocese closed St. John's last year, although the parishioners are appealing to the Vatican to reverse the decision. If anyone else here is, as am I, a descendant of families who belonged to St. John's, you may be interested to know that I spoke some months ago with Msgr. John Oliveira -- who has been pastoring both St. John's and another historic New Bedford Portuguese church, Our Lady of Mount Carmel -- to inquire about what would happen to the parish records. (I was afraid they would be sent to the diocesan archives and become de facto inaccessible there.) He informed me that all of the St. John's records were being transferred to Mount Carmel and inquiries could be directed there, but that it would take some time in the transition and consolidation of the parishes before they could field genealogical research inquiries (although they would fulfill immediately any inquiry needed for religious purposes). 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) On Sunday, April 21, 2013 9:35:25 PM UTC-4, Joanne wrote: > > Al, > I would try contacting Santo Christo Church in Fall River, MA. They are > the mother church of all the Portuguese churches in the Diocese of Fall > River and if you ask nicely, they might look up the info for you. Worth a > try but you might want to contact them sooner than later. Rumors have it > that they may be merging with another parish in the near future and those > books will be moved to a new home. > * > * > *Joanne* > * > * > *Joanne Medeiros Grota Mercier* > Researching Bretanha (Medeiros Grota, Benevides, deSouza), Lagoa (Luiz, > d'Oliveira Homem) and Rabo de Peixe (Martins Gouveia) > > > > > > > > -- 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.
