It reminds me either earlier this year or late last year in a message forum for Portuguese descendants from Hawaii, I asked people to please start writing São (Sao) Miguel and stop Hispanicizing all Portuguese names like João to Juan. People argued, saying that that is how they found the record. *sigh*
Yet they prefer to take it as if it's an "official" way of how that ancestor was using their name. K On Wednesday, May 15, 2013 8:05:46 AM UTC-7, Cheri Mello wrote: > > Spelling was always one of my strong subjects, so try really hard not to > let misspellings bother me, but in this case I really need to speak up. > > The Azores are a part of Portugal, not Spain. The language of the Azores > and Portugal is Portuguese, not Spanish. > > The word for saint in Portuguese is Sao (properly, it's São). The word > for saint in Spanish is San. > > I know there are many areas of the U.S. that touch the Mexican border and > for those of us in these areas, we may encounter the Spanish language more > frequently, so we may not even notice the San instead of Sao, since San is > so familiar to us. They even have lots of cities named in Spanish after > saints (San Francisco is one). > > So if you are in the habit of typing San on this list, or are new to > Portuguese genealogy and didn't realize the difference, please put a > post-it on your computer that says: Sao Miguel, Sao Jorge, or Sao whatever > (if that is your freguesia). > > People write me and say, for example, that they remember a post about Sao > Vicente on Sao Miguel and they can't find it in the archive. So I search > the archive by typing in Sao Vicente and Sao Miguel and I can't find it > either. Then I have to play around with the San and even sometimes the > translation into English. > > Please, please, please, stick with the Portuguese spelling! > > P.S. On Sao Miguel...it's MiGuel...a G in there...not a Q. That one > makes the message impossible to find in the archive. > > Cheri Mello > Listowner, Azores-Gen > Researching: Vila Franca, Ponta Garca, Ribeira Quente, Ribeira das > Tainhas, Achada > -- 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.
