All that be true, Carlos, however, there still* isn't* a "San" Miguel, or 
"San" Jorge, island in the Azores. If people want to "find their roots," 
they need to start by at least getting the names of the *islands*straight...   

On Monday, March 31, 2014 3:08:06 PM UTC-4, rchaves wrote:
>
> Hi, 
>
> all that is called evolution! It has been "happening" here as time goes 
> by! I sure would find awkward if my name was Xaves instead of Chaves or 
> Joseph instead of José, or Joachim instead of Joaquim, etc.
>
>  If you are registered with a prefix in your name, you cannot simply 
> decide to "throw" it away. I am DA PONTE CHAVES, and legally in Portugal, 
> DA PONTE is part of my grandfather's surname.
>
> To be able to sign my name with out the prefix "DA" I had to request that 
> to "Registo" Civil, and ONLY in the signature, not in the government 
> system, Da is still part of my name in the ID card.
>
> For those who have born, I would say, in the past 100 years, and their 
> parents chose to remove the prefix from their inherited names, will 
> continue to be a Chaves or Sousa etc. even with out it, the prefix was 
> there for ages.
>
> Portuguese is an evolution of Latin as you probably all know, and names, 
> or should I say, surnames, either than those from royalty, also have 
> certain origins. Don't have for granted that for example "Jon doe da Fonte" 
> 400 years ago an ascendent of Jon doe de Fontes" 200 years later.
>
> PS: Cheri, there people here still using their original ascendent names, 
> including Mello with 2 L! :-)
>
>
>
>    
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 5:53 PM, Cheri Mello <[email protected]<javascript:>
> > wrote:
>
>> HI Eliseu,
>>
>> Try to explain that to people who immigrated to America a while ago and 
>> went to American schools.  Roll call...and their names are in the D 
>> section!  They seriously think their name begins with a D and they look at 
>> me like I'm crazy when I try to explain the pre-surname thing.
>>
>> But if we all did alphabetize by de, da, do, d'....then a very large 
>> portion of Portuguese people would have surnames beginning with D!  That 
>> would be very strange!
>>
>> One of the tech help guys at The Master Genealogist was a De Silva.  That 
>> drove me nuts.  It IS his legal name in America and they immigrated a long 
>> time ago.  And his Da got corrupted into a De.  And Hawaii is a whole 
>> different story because their spellings really got changed around. 
>>
>> And I suppose people look at my name over in the Azores and think I can't 
>> spell.  Actually, I know that they think that.  When I used to write the 
>> archives, they wrote back to me as a  Melo, not Mello.  At my local 
>> Portuguese hall, they also spell my name Melo.  I know how to spell my 
>> legal name and I know that he emigrated in 1903 before the spelling change 
>> and that I carry the "old" spelling.  I just go with the flow.
>>
>> But yes, searches in Portuguese databases need to be done without 
>> de/da/do/d' and in American searches, try it every which way you can!
>>
>> Cheri Mello
>> Listowner, Azores-Gen
>> Researching: Vila Franca, Ponta Garca, Ribeira Quente, Ribeira das 
>> Tainhas, Achada 
>>
>> -- 
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>
>
>
> -- 
> Ricardo Chaves
>
> 

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