Author: Melody Lassalle

Research Journal #6, Entry #5 I set out for the Family History Center one day determined that this intimidating structure would not beat me! My first stop was the card catalog file. I knew that my couple was from the town of Maia and that the church I needed was Divino Esperito Santo. By this…

[Research Journal #6, Entry 3] I began visiting the Portuguese Genealogy Chat on AOL (run by my friends and fellow researchers, Cheri Mello and Linda Crandall) and was boosting my research self esteem. I learned that I could order baptismal records for my Portuguese kin by mail. I was pretty sure the Family History Center…

My great great grandparents, Jozimas de Braga and Maria da Conceicao de Mello arrived in Hawaii in Jun 1882. I had information from the census on when my Gr Gr Grandparents migrated to Hawaii. I checked the ship indexes and found their entry. This helped me find them in the Azorean Passports The couple was…

[Research Journal #6, Entry #1]My Gr Gr Great Grandmother was Maria da Conceicao (de Mello) de Braga left for Hawaii in 1882. She didn’t leave many clues as to who her parents were. I knew she was from the town of Maia, Ribeira Grande, Sao Miguel Island, and that she married Jozimas de Braga. Beyond…

[Research Journal #5, Entry #10] I set off to find the Kelly’s in Massachusetts. But guess what? There weren’t there! All the Martin Kelly/Kelley’s were a wash. What to do? What to do? I decided that there had to be a problem with the surname. Online census indexes are notorious for creative transcription. I had…