Let me take a stab at clarifying my questions. 1) Would the residents of all islands normally obtain their passports in one place, or would each island (or each group of islands) have its own "passport office." I'm looking at the records from Ponta Delgada for 1875-1883. For those years, would residents of all islands have their passport requests included there, or is it more like the baptism and death records I've seen, where records are not centralized? I'm looking for people from S Maria, so is it more likely that there would be another repository for those records, or would those people--again, in the normal course of action--have their records included in the Ponta Delgada records? 3) I am aware that there was no teenage demographic in the 19th century. I used the term just as a reference point. In the book I am currently reading, there is reference to a Portuguese conscription in the 19th century that laid claim to boys from 15 to 18 years of age. Since "buying" a surrogate, or simply paying a substantial fee was not possible for the poor--and virtually all Azoreans were poor, this was quoted as a major drive to illegally immigrate as stowaways in that demographic. Since, despite having been praised as meticulously-researched, the book is a work of fiction, so I was questioning whether that was in fact true. (My ancestor would have fallen neatly into that group.) Since I posted, however, I have confirmed that with other reliable sources. There are, in fact, poems and prose from that time period about the system of paying off "boy-smugglers" and the light-signaling system that was in place to allow those smugglers to evade the Portuguese authorities and get the boys on board foreign ships, where they worked for passage for as long as thee years. As the book said, this was referred to as "stealing Portuguese." In the pages of the passport records that I looked at, the few teen-aged boys I saw all have the same notation in the last column--but sadly I can't read it!
On Saturday, April 12, 2014 6:04:52 PM UTC-7, Cheri Mello wrote: > Liliana, > > You are going to have to clarify. This, that, it....I'll have to guess at > what you mean. > > 1) Are records from all the islands in this one place? > A) Passaporte records that exist will come online at the CCA site. The > physical location of the records is a different answer. They are at the 3 > archives. > > 2) Would anyone be able to translate the column headings? > A) The headings will vary with different time periods. For this time > period, it looks like Passaporte #, Year, month, day, name, age, status > (single, married), profession/occupation, native of (freguesia), can write > or not, other people traveling with the main passport holder, next column - > not sure, country traveling to, city traveling to, last column - not sure. > > Q) Does that mean there was only one passport to a family? > A) For this time period, yes. I think so in the later passaportes as > well, but then each family member was listed with their own passenger > number. > > 3) I'm especially interested in the last column. In all the pages I've > looked at, it seems to be for a teenage boy. A) That's the one I can't > read. Well, I can read it. Looks like Faria e Maia to me. But no, it's > not reserved for "teenagers." That word did not exist in the 1800s. I seem > to remember reading somewhere that the whole teenage movement became > popular in the 1950s but it had its beginnings in the 1920s in the flapper > era. I'd have to check my history, so don't take my word on that, but I > flat out know it's not a "teenage" thing. The world of the 1870s was > children and adults. I don't know what constituted an adult in the 1870s > in the Azores. > > 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]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/azores.
