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How I Overcame My Road Block in My Research
By Nancy Peck, NPeck123@aol.com
My search started one day while I was playing around with my computer and discovered the genealogy Portuguese chat. I was so excited because I had always wanted to know more about my Great grandmother, Eugenia. As a child I would hear my Mom speak very lovingly about her "poor Grandmother", she had died when my Mother was only 13.
My grandmother, Eugenia's daughter, was a very quiet, religious person that always appeared to be very sad. I guess thats what always made me curious about the family. I started asking every living relative everything I could possibly think of, and I mailed away for all the death certificates so I could try to find out parents names etc.
I had all the info on the Almeidas that had come to the US but I was hitting a brick wall when it came to any family over in the Azores, all I knew was that they were from Santa Maria. I had no names nothing, but I did have a town Sao Pedro. As everyone knows when you're searching the worse thing to do is hit a wall because usually you do 1 of 2 things, drive yourself crazy or drop out of the search totally and give up. Well, I went with drive yourself crazy.
I found a directory web site and I looked up the Azores, and then Santa Maria and I called all the Almeida numbers in the book. I know this sounds a little crazy because I don't even speak the language. Most of the people that answered didn't have a clue what I was saying and then about the 4th call I made I spoke with a Aura Almeida and she was wonderful and luckily spoke broken English or at least I could make out what she was trying to tell me. She said she grew up in Sao Pedro and she married a Almeida from Lisbon so she didn't think we were the Almeida family I was looking for. I told her that I was going to write her a letter explaining the search and what I needed to find out. I told her if she thought she could help that would be great.
Aura is married to Raul Almeida and they have 2 adult children Maria and Bela. About 2 months after I wrote the letter to Aura I was checking my mail and to my surprise I found a letter from Santa Maria. Needless to say I was in 7th heaven and I hadn't even read it yet (that's what searching can do to you). The letter was written by Aura's daughter Bela. Bela speaks and writes English well.
In the letter it stated that Aura had been carrying my letter with her in her purse and this one Sunday she was at Mass and she sat next to a elderly gentleman and began talking, during the conversation she realized he was part of my family and she pulled out my letter and read it to him, her daughter, Bela, translated it for him. His name was Joao Soares Almeida and he's 73 years old and blind. He asked her to come to his house because he had photos of my great grandfather and Grandmother that were sent to his father many, many years ago before he was born. His father was the younger 1/2 brother of my great grandfather, there was about 20 years difference in age. Aura went with him and took the photos to the bank to photo copy them. In the letter she gave me his address and told me to e-mail her daughter, Bela, and son in law, Luis, if I needed anything else.
I was overwhelmed I e-mail Bela and she filled me in on alot of other details about the family such as Joao had a older living brother that lived in Sao Pedro named Manuel that was 89 years old, and that another sister(youngest one)lived in California. I couldn't believe that I had actually found a living relative of my grandmothers, that my Grandmother never even knew about.
I can remember having strange feelings like this was too weird or maybe even a little scary, almost like I was being used in some sort of way with a higher power. I know that sounds a little extreme but it didn't last long, I guess it just passed my mind. Bela said that Joao wanted to meet me and wanted to know if I was going to come to Santa Maria. I had Bela make reservations for me to stay in Vila de Porto. I called my Aunt Rose and she went along with me.
We had made our reservations about a month in advance so I would have time to prepare myself and, of course, get a better rate. I e-mailed my new friend Bela at least every other day. Bela met my Aunt and me at the airport with her father and drove us to the hotel in Vila, after getting checked in we had dinner at Bela's mothers house. It was good Portuguese food. Bela's parents shared alot of stories about the island, after all, Bela's mother is 72 and lived there all her life.
The following day we visited Joao--we went to his house. It was very exciting I saw where his father lived (my great grandfather's brother's house), also he told me all the old stories that had been passed down to him. He had been having his granddaughter (12 years old) write down names and things he would remember ever since he found out we were coming. Joao and his family were very poor and very proud. They lived in a very, very small house in a very poor area, which there are many. The important thing is they were happy or seemed to be. I was sitting there imagining if I had been brought up on that island--I guess you don't know what you don't have.
The following day I went to Mass in the church where all my family had gone and were baptised. We sat and listened to the Mass and didn't understand a word of it. Manuel was there, the older brother. We spoke with him and he was very happy about us being there (it was All Saints Day, of all days). His brother didn't mention to Manuel anything about us, so when Bela started to tell him in Portuguese who I was and what I was there for, he was a little dazed--he wanted to know if I was a angel. He was very talkative and knew alot more than his brother about my great grandfather. He told me about his grandparent and where they came from and his great grandfather's name. He even told us where his grandfather lived with his 7 sons and wife in Vila de porto. It was a house that was still standing after all those years and it was only a couple houses down from the hotel we were staying in. It was all coming together and very quickly.
I was writing down so much my hand actually began to hurt, I was missing my keyboard. We stayed a week and flew out of Sao Miguel, the day we left a huge rainbow was over the airport. I pointed it out to Tia Rosa (thats what I was calling her by the end of our trip) and told her I think that's our relatives in the heavens thanking us for coming. All in all it was a wonderful trip. I couldn't have made it as far as I did without the support of the Portuguese chat room. Now I'm taking a break and soon I'll go back through all my notes and get started again. My new goal is to find out where in Portugal did we come from.