Hi All,
Just want to share this genealogy sleuthing and dealing with damaged records. I have been working with a line that has ended in Bretanha. What I have noticed there are a number of woman named Maria de Benevides so I have to be careful in determining which Maria is which. What makes this challenging is the fact that the records from Bretanha on line begin in 1703. http://culturacores.azores.gov.pt/biblioteca_digital/SMG-PD-AJUDABRETANHA-C- 1703-1779/SMG-PD-AJUDABRETANHA-C-1703-1779_item1/P191.html Record bottom left. This first record I want to highlight is a marriage on 16 May 1707 of Miguel de Oliveira widow of Maria Benevides and Margarida de Pimentel daughter of Tome Furtado and Lucia de Carvalho. The only person deceased here is Maria Benevides. http://culturacores.azores.gov.pt/biblioteca_digital/SMG-PD-AJUDABRETANHA-C- 1703-1779/SMG-PD-AJUDABRETANHA-C-1703-1779_item1/P211.html Record on left In this record of 6 Mar 1716 is the marriage of Manuel de Medeiros son of Joseph de Medeiros and Maria Benevedes and Maria de Pimentel daughter of Tome Furtado and Lucia Carvalho. I would note that there is no indication that any party is deceased. Because Maria de Pimentel is the sister of Margarida de Pimentel an assumption could be made that the Maria Benevides in both records was the same person due to family connections which the assumption that Manuel de Madeiros was the step son of Miguel de Oliveira and his first wife Maria Benevides. The confusion is ended with the next record. http://culturacores.azores.gov.pt/biblioteca_digital/SMG-PD-AJUDABRETANHA-O- 1713-1778/SMG-PD-AJUDABRETANHA-O-1713-1778_item1/P10.html Record upper right. In this record of 27 (Oct ?) 1718 which is partially unreadable. At the end of the third line is the first name of the deceased "Joseph" on the following line is mulher Maria Benevides. What is important is what is missing. And that is the last name of Joseph although a safe assumption is that it is Medeiros. It seems the format at the time for a partner in marriage was to use one word between the names. If the spouse was deceased then the word viuvo/viuva would be used. If the spouse was still alive then the word mulher/marido is used. On this record the word "mulher is used indicating that Maria Benevides was still alive and could not be the first wife of Miguel de Oliveira. If I looked further I may be able to find the death of Maria Benevides viuvo of Joseph de Medeiros but as you see the records from NS Ajuda Bretanha in this time frame are torture trying to read. The worse book is the marriages 1703-1779 which was rebound without making any attempt to put the pages together in order. Looking at 200+ pages for a record on a particular date is very time consuming. I found one record that was on the bottom of a page and somewhere else hopefully is the other half of the record. At least this record was not important to me at this time. What I have determined from all this is that I have two separate Maria de Benevedes in my Tree. One died before 16 May 1707 and the other died after 27 Oct 1718. Rick Richard Francis Pimentel Spring, TX -- 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.
