Joaquim Pedro da Silva, b. 1910, taken Summer 1995 by me
In the summer of 1995 my family traveled to Brazil to visit family. I was 14 years old and had never met most of them. I clearly remember meeting my Great-Grandfather Joaquim. He was an hilarious, albeit crotchety, old man.
Since I’ve had such trouble with the search for my Grandmother Lindalva’s birth record I stepped back and thought maybe she might not have been born in Joao Pessoa after all. Her father, Joaquim, was born in Alagoa Grande, about 100 km east of Joao Pessoa. So, on a lark, I decided to look through Alagoa Grande’s parish records to see if I could find Joaquim’s birth/christening record.
Here’s what I knew* before I started: * by knew I mean that my father had collected these dates/places from speaking with family members many years ago…but there are very few documents (yet) to support these claims.
Joaquim Pedro da Silva
b. 9 Jun 1910, Alagoa Grande, Paraiba, Brazil
m. 15 Sep 1948, Joao Pessoa, Paraiba, Brazil
d. 24 Dec 2001, Joao Pessoa, Paraiba, Brazil Note: his marriage date is 14 years after his oldest child, my grandmother, was born. That date comes from a copy of his civil marriage certificate. Perhaps they were married in the Catholic church on another date but didn’t register the marriage with the government? As always, more research is needed.
So, I went off in search of his christening record, and here’s what I found:
Source: Family Search, “Brazil, Catholic Church Records,” digital image, Family Search (familysearch.org : downloaded 11 March 2013), Image 95, page 89, Entry 252; Brazil, Parish and Diocesan Records – Paraíba – Alagoa Grande – Nossa Senhora da Boa Viagem – Batismos 1909, Ago-1911, Maio.
SERIOUSLY!!!???!!! Come on now! Not only is the page torn away but the microfilm-er didn’t move over the small stub of the previous page which covered some of what was left. I even tried using the next page (back side of this one) and darkening the bit you could see through the page to see if I could read it. Nope.
Anyway, I believe entry number 252 to be his. Here’s what I’ve worked out:
By looking at a previous entry (from the top of the page) I decided that this particular scribe had a “template” for all his entries. (I double checked that this was the same throughout the previous and subsequent pages.)
Template: Date of baptism, “I baptized in the font of this Parish”, Name of child, age of child in days, parent(s) names, godparents names, testify of truthfulness and signature.
So what did I learn from this record?
A child named Joaquim was baptized on or around 9 June 1910
The child was perhaps 23 days old or even 23 hours old?
I have multiple options for my grandmother, Lindalva Ferreira da Silva (Lima)’s birthday.
She told my mother (her daughter) and thoughout her life celebrated on 7 Oct stating the birth year was 1934 and that she was married at 16 years old.
She was married on 30 Sep 1950 and I have her marriage record. The priest lists her age as 17 years old, which would mean her birthdate was between 30 Sep 1932 – 30 Sep 1933.
Her Death Certificate from 6 Jun 1999 states her age at death as 64 which places her birthday from 7 Jun 1937 – 7 Jun 1938. This would, however, make her 12-13 years old when she married, which I find very unlikely. I don’t know who the informant on the death certificate is and what his relation is to Lindalva. He may not have known her age accurately.
I’ll be honest. This has been very distressing to my mother who I think feels that I am calling her mother a liar. I just want to find her birth/christening record. But I don’t know where to look. So I made a chart.
There are 3 parishes and 1 archdiocese in the city of Joao Pesso, Pariba, Brazil. She was married in Nossa Senhora do Rosario, and I have that marriage record. As you can see from the chart, I have yet to find her and all I have left to search are the 1937-38 years (which would make her too young to marry).
I’m not sure where to go from here. I think I will:
Complete my search of the 1937-38 records for all the parishes.
Ask my brother, or another set of eyes, to search all the same records. Maybe I just missed her? There is no index. 🙁
There are no civil records digitized or on microfilm for births after 1931.
Maybe an aunt could go to the registrars office in Joao Pessoa and find a birth certificate. Or maybe they already have a copy?
All I want is a document as source of her birth! Is that too much to ask?
Oh, the joys of FamilySearch.org … I’m still amazed that I can look at local parish records from around the world! In this case I was looking through the digitized (albeit not indexed) images of Catholic parish records from João Pessoa, Brazil. This one happens to be for my maternal grandparents – João and Lindalva.
Source: Family Search, “Brazil, Catholic Church Records,” digital image, Family Search (familysearch.org : downloaded 14 March 2012), Joao de Sousa Lima and Lindalva Ferreira da Silva Marriage Record, 30 Sep 1950; Nossa Senhora do Rosario parish, page 35, entry 131.
Transcription:
131 – João de Sousa Lima e Lindalva Ferreira da Silva
Aos trinta dias do mês de Setembro de mil novecentos e cinqüenta, na Matriz do Rosario, perante as testemunhas justo Lacerda Ferreira e João Cabral Batista, o Revmo Frei Inocencio ofm. assistiu ao recebimento matrimonial de João de Sousa Lima e Lindalva Ferreira da Silva, o nubente con 25 anos de idade, filho legitimo de Manuel de Sousa Lima e Hosana Maria da Conceiçao, natural e batizado em Cajazeiras, a nubente con 17 anos de idade, filha legitima de Joaquim Pedro da Silva e Ernestina Ferreira da Silva, natural e batizada em João Pessoa, residentes nesta frequezia. E, para constar, mandei fazer este fermo que assino.
(signed) Frei Jorge [Bolchaus.?] ofm. Vigário
Translation:
On the thirtieth day of the month of September of nineteen hundred and fifty, in the Mother of the Rosary, as witnessed by Lacerda Ferreira and João Cabral Batista, the Reverand Frei Inocencio [ofm.?] performed the marriage rite of João de Sousa Lima and Lindalva Ferreira da Silva, the groom with 25 years of age, legitimate son of Manuel de Sousa Lima and Hosana Maria da Conceiçao, born and baptized in Cajazeiras, the bride with 17 years of age, legitimate daughter of Joaquim Pedro da Silva e Ernestina Ferreira da Silva, born and baptized in João Pessoa, residents in this parish. And, for the record, I had this record made, and I sign.
(signed) Frei Jorge [Bolchaus.?] ofm. Vigário
Interesting: This record gives the same marriage date I have, 30 Sept 1950. However, there is a discrepancy in Lindalva’s age. Based on the birth date I have of 7 Oct 1934, she would be 15 years old (about a week shy of her 16th birthday) on the date of her wedding. The marriage record states she was 17 years old, and when I asked my mother about it, she said that Lindalva was 16 years old when she got married. So, now I’m thinking I’ll need to find her christening record and see if she was born in 1932 or 1933 or 1934.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll proably repeat it again in the future — my side of the family is hard to research! Since I was born in Brazil, to Brazilian parents and Brazillian grandparents all our records are there, and Brazil is not the easiest place to do genealogy work. Not only do I struggle with the language (I can speak and read it mostly) but there just isn’t as much available to me here at home (in Utah) as there would be for any other place in the US. I’m sure if I really took some time at the Family History Library I could do a lot, but I have two young boys and just don’t have that kind of time…I’ll just have to work slowly, but surely, I guess.
Anyway, all this is to say that I did find a record for my Maternal Grandparents’ marriage in Joao Pessoa, Paraiba, Brazil. So, I thought I’d use this document to show my process for adding documents and citations to my database (which happens to be RootsMagic5).
Source: Family Search, “Brazil, Catholic Church Records,” digital image, Family Search (familysearch.org : downloaded 14 March 2012), Joao de Sousa Lima and Lindalva Ferreira da Silva Marriage Record, 30 Sep 1950; Nossa Senhora do Rosario parish, page 35, entry 131.
Citation Whenever I post an image of a document to the blog I like to cite the source so y’all know where it came from and that it is legit. I just enter in the information I know about it. I try to do this right when I find the source if I’m at home, but if I’m at the Family History Center or Library I take extensive notes so I can add it when I get home. I normally use the “footnote” version of the citation on the blog because it includes a lot more information.
File Naming and Organization I’ve talked about the organization of my file structure before, so I won’t go into that here. But, I will mention that I recently decided to change how I named the files themselves. I followed Calvin Knight’s file naming conventions for the most part and am slowly renaming my files. So this particular file got the name: Lima_Joao_b1925_&Lindalva_19500930_MarriageRecord_01
Transcription / Translation I like to transcribe most documents using Microsoft Word. This way I can easily add the text to my database program and to my blog…making it easier for people to search for the names, dates, places etc found in the document image. If the document is in a foreign language then I make sure to transcribe and translate it into English. I also copy and paste the source citation onto that document as well. So, for the above Marriage Record here’s what I have:
131 – João de Sousa Lima e Lindalva Ferreira da Silva
Transcription:
Aos trinta dias do mês de Setembro de mil novecentos e cinqüenta, na Matriz do Rosario, perante as testemunhas justo Lacerda Ferreira e João Cabral Batista, o Revmo Frei Inocencio ofm. assistiu ao recebimento matrimonial de João de Sousa Lima e Lindalva Ferreira da Silva, o nubente con 25 anos de idade, filho legitimo de Manuel de Sousa Lima e Hosana Maria da Conceiçao, natural e batizado em Cajazeiras, a nubente con 17 anos de idade, filha legitima de Joaquim Pedro da Silva e Ernestina Ferreira da Silva, natural e batizada em João Pessoa, residentes nesta frequezia. E, para constar, mandei fazer este fermo que assino. (signed) Frei Jorge [Bolchaus.?] ofm. Vigário
Translation:
On the thirtieth day of the month of September of nineteen hundred and fifty, in the Mother of the Rosary, as witnessed by Lacerda Ferreira and João Cabral Batista, the Reverand Frei Inocencio [ofm.?] performed the marriage rite of João de Sousa Lima and Lindalva Ferreira da Silva, the groom with 25 years of age, legitimate son of Manuel de Sousa Lima and Hosana Maria da Conceiçao, born and baptized in Cajazeiras, the bride with 17 years of age, legitimate daughter of Joaquim Pedro da Silva e Ernestina Ferreira da Silva, born and baptized in João Pessoa, residents in this parish. And, for the record, I had this [fermo] sign. (signed) Frei Jorge [Bolchaus.?] ofm. Vigário
I make sure to copy the transcription/translation into my RootsMagic “Detail Text” tab for this source and to add the image of the original document under the “Media” tab. (Hint: do this for the first citation you make for this document – in my case, for the marriage of Joao and Lindalva. Once I have added all the relevant transcriptions and media I can choose “Memorize” and add this exact citation to any other fact. If I want to add any comments specific to the fact, I’ll go in and do that as well.)
Facts and More Facts When adding information to my database found in the document I like to have the transcription/translation open next to my database so I can read it as I go, like in the image above. You could also print it out if you’d like. So for this particular document I was able to add this source citation to the following facts:
Marriage – Joao de Souza Lima & Lindalva Ferreira Da Silva – date and location, as well as adding the names of the witnesses (they may come up later).
Birth – Joao de Souza Lima – made a note that the marriage record gave the groom’s age as 25 at the time of marriage which supports the birth date I have of 4 Jun 1925. It also lists the birth place.
Relationship to parents – Joao / Manuel and Hosana. I added a note to this citation that they are listed as Joao’s parent’s in his marriage record. Because this “relationship” source shows up for any of the children, I wanted to specify that it only proves they are Joao’s parents…not necessarily true for any of the other children. (this is an item I’ve requested RootsMagic look into as I’d like a better way to distinguish the relationships I’m citing)
Birth – Lindalva Ferreira da Silva – I added a new birth fact because her marriage record states that she was 17 years old but the birth date I have from family recollection would mean she’d be 15 years old at the time of marriage. Either I have the wrong birth date or she lied on her marriage record (was there a certain age she needed to be?). Either way, I now have both facts listed in my database with their corresponding notes so as my research continues I know where these “facts” came from. (See yesterday’s post about dealing with false information.)
Relationship to parents – Lindalva / Joaquim and Ernestina.
Depending on the document you may have more or fewer facts associated with it. By citing everything you can get out of a document you can decide how true a fact is.
Why, its the study of the Lund's, of course! I am jumping in to researching our family history and seeing where it takes me. We are the Lund's. We come from Lund's, Ranson's, DeMacedo's, Lima's, Anderson's, Warner's, Ferreira's, Da Silva's and beyond! Since my own side of the family is from Brazil, it is quite difficult to track things down. Troy's side, on the other hand, has proven to be much easier. So, I'll be jumping back and forth and all around to learn about where we come from.
Are you related to us? I'd love to learn more about you and share what I know about our common ancestors!
