I'll try to keep this short, but from time to time I love reading a good "happy ending" genealogy story, and since I am new to this group, I thought mine might be a story worth sharing with all of you. ...
I have been researching for 40 years. I remember paying someone travelling to the Azores to find a single record for me - it was the only way back then. I then went to the islands myself three times to do the research myself, in the original records, for the first time. Handling the original volumes with my ancestors' names is an unforgettable experience. In the early 1980s my wife and I went to Sao Miguel and while researching in the Archivo, met the man from the Mormon church who was in the process of microfilming the records. He took us to the little building near the Archivo where he was set up and he showed us the process. What a blessing - I rejoiced at the thought that in a few years I would be able to examine microfilms in an LDS family history center a few miles from home ... and I have spent many years and many hundreds of dollars renting and researching those microfilms! Through these several different efforts I have had the good fortune of finding 7 of my 8 great-grandparents, all born in Sao Miguel, and have traced their lines back for anywhere from decades to centuries, depending on the line. The 8th ggp, Maria Ricarda Gonzales, has eluded me because I only knew her birth date and that she was born on Sao Jorge, but had no idea what village. Her parents were circus performers in a small circus that traveled through the Azores, Madeira, Canary Islands, Spain, and France. Her father (Agustin Ribero Gonzales) was from somewhere in the Canary Islands and her mother (Maria Ricarda Martins) was from Ponta Delgada (and yes, I had their names as well). That was all I knew of her origin for 40 years. It was ironic that I knew nothing about her birth because she was also the only great grandparent I ever knew personally (she died when I was just a young kid). In October 2012 I had the opportunity to make a short visit to my home area of New Bedford for a family wedding. I wrote ahead to the local LDS FHC librarian because I knew they had a lot of Azorean microfilms; I wanted to know what Sao Jorge villages they had (figured it would save me a bunch in rental fees if I could at least go through those while I was there). I told her *only* the first name of my ggm (Maria), her birth date, and that she was born on Sao Jorge (I wasn't expecting anyone to do research; I just wanted to give her a better idea of what I hoped to accomplish when I got up there). That was all: Maria + birth date + island. Then the big surprise came: a few days later, while sitting in the car outside of a Garden Ridge store down here in south Texas, hoping my wife would soon stop shopping (!), I felt my phone vibrate; a message had come in from that FHC director. In that little text message she explained she had given the information I provided to one of her patrons who specialized in Azorean research and he knew about a website that I had never heard of (the CCA website). He told her to let me know he had looked at *one*village (Calheta; how he picked that one at random, I'll never know), and he had found a birth of a Maria for that birth date, just in case I might be interested. There she was in my little cell phone window: my great grandmother! I was able to instantly identify her by her parent's names (which I had *not *provided to the FHC director): the names of her father and mother which were in the record along with the fact that her father was from the Canary Islands ... not only that, but *specifically *the village of Santa Brigida on the island of Gran Canaria! I had no idea what island or town my great-great grandfather was from until that moment! My wife has *never* seen such a look on my face after she has gone shopping before! :) In the year that has passed, I have (exclusively through the help of a now dear friend in Gran Canaria) been able to discover many dozens of ancestors in four of the Canary Islands, going back the same number of centuries as my Azorean ancestral lines. There will always be more ancestors, more finds, and more exciting moments, but having a brick wall completely destroyed - because someone I have never met instantly pulled the needle out of the haystack - still stuns me to this day. May all your Maria's also be found in 2014! --Andy Rapoza A quick postscript: When I am done with this post, I will go to the CCA website and do my research from the comfort and convenience of my own home; for those who, like me, have experienced all the changes in research, isn't it wonderful to be a genealogist in 2014? My goodness, the changes in my lifetime! -- 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.
