We have many new members now. So just to be clear, I am going to list the 9 islands of the Azores.
Santa Maria Sao Miguel Terceira Graciosa Sao Jorge Pico Faial (Fayal is the old spelling) Flores Corvo These 9 islands are an autonomous region of Portugal. They belong to Portugal, they speak Portuguese, they do things the way that things are generally done in Portugal. Portugal is NOT a part of Spain. In Portugal, they speak Portuguese and in Spain, they speak Spanish. Two different countries and two different languages. You know we all want to curse that census taker who could not spell our surnames? We have to search indices various ways to find our ancestor in the censuses and ships' lists? Makes it really hard to search, doesn't it? Same goes here too. When posting about your island, use the PROPER Portuguese spelling. Do NOT use Spanish spellings. The island of San Miguel is NOT Portuguese. It's somewhere off the coast of California. "San" is Spanish. Sao is Portuguese. Someone will search the archive, looking for a post made about Sao Miguel or Sao Jorge islands and won't be able to find it because the author spelled it in Spanish. Put a post it on your computer screen with the correct Portuguese spelling of your island please. And who knows, someone may find a post of yours from the past and contact you! And it's MiGuel not MiQuel. It's a G in the middle of that word, not a Q. Same for JorGe, not JorQe. Again, it will mess up the search. And for those who are wondering, the Madeiran islands are another autonomous region of Portugal, but those two islands do NOT belong to the Azores. Madeira does its own thing. The Cape Verde islands used to belong to Portugal. They are now their own nation. The Canary Islands belong to Spain, as well as the Balearic islands and the ones in the Straight of Gibraltar (I think). So the Azores islands are just the 9 ones listed above. 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.
