... also as time went by books were lost by all means you may imagine: fire, earthquakes, rain, poorness, stupidity... you name it!
The records were made in duplicate. One of those was supposed to be sent to The Vatican. It looks like this was never done... When the Civil Registry Law was implemented the priests sent one of the copies to the Civil Registry and kept the other. Of course a lot of problems occurred, being one of them the priests laziness allied to the laziness of the clerks. If you go to the Public Archive of Ribeira Grande you will see that all the documents made by the Ouvidoria (The main Office of the Church in the area) are there. This is why I was able to found the dates of the marriages that are in the missing book of marriages of Porto Formoso. So it seems that some Concelhos are better organized then others... Eliseu Pacheco da Silva Researching Açores (São Miguel and Graciosa) and Alentejo ( <http://gw.geneanet.org/eliseumanuel> http://gw.geneanet.org/eliseumanuel ) -- 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.
