Roberta I, Some indices were created for some books in some freguesias. Some of the these indices are part of the book itself, done by the parish priest. Generally, I click on the group of records that I want to see and then I go to the back of the book (the last few images on the CCA) to see if an index was created. I seem to find more indices in the later records (late 1800s onwards).
A few freguesias have separate indices in separate books. These are listed on the CCA site if they exist. What I find easier is to use the Tombo site, as he crawls the CCA and presents the links that exist for that freguesia/parish on one page (clicking on the individual links takes you back to the CCA however). Here is an example of indices that were created as separate books for the freguesia of Ponta Garca on Sao Miguel island: http://tombo.pt/f/vfc02 You can see right of the bat what the CCA holds for Ponta Garca: Baptisms, marriages, indices, deaths, and perfilhaçoes. However, if the records are indexed in the back of the baptism book there's no way to tell if an index exists. Look at this example from Ribeira das Tainhas on Sao Miguel island: http://tombo.pt/f/vfc05 Only baptisms, marriages, deaths, and perfilhaçoes are listed. Yet if I go to baptisms for 1900 and click on image 24 & 25, I can see the index to the records of that year: http://goo.gl/JlrrkG You just have to look. Question 2: Yes civil registries existed, but the early ones were mainly used by non-Catholics. I believe the Civil Registry system became widespread in 1910 or 1911. Everyone, Catholic or not, had to register. As for the grandparents names, I don't know. All my people were Catholic and I don't think I had to look in the Civil Registries. But if I had to guess, I would think that *IF* they asked for grandparents' names, it would be the late 1800s onwards. Question 3: Yes, if we knew the name, date, place then we'd have the information that the record contains. Same thing with American arrival records. Many of us want the ship name and yet the form asks us for it. If we knew it, we wouldn't be asking. Just give them as much information has you have so they have enough information to figure out it is the right record. 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.
