This is Genealogy Research Journal #2. In this series, I’ll show how the Camara and Cosma families who spent so much time together turned out to be related. This turned into a tricky research problem. It involves multiple name changes. Also, at the time I took up this problem those living had forgotten their connections. They had a vague sense of being cousins but had no idea how. They only know that there were a few marriages and that the…
This is the fifth entry in the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. The theme is Ploughing Through. I wonder how many researchers with Portuguese Hawaiian ancestry realize that their female ancestors were under contract, too? My great great grandmother was one of those women. This is the original sugar plantation contract that my great great grandmother, Maria da Conceicao (de Mello) de Braga signed before leaving for Hawaii. The original has been in the hands of the Bonita descendants…
Several years ago, I contacted the Hawaiian Sugar Plantation Association to see if there were records for the Kilauea Sugar Plantation as well as others on Kauai that were of interest to me. At that time, the records were still held by the Association. I found that they had no records for Kilauea and scant few for the rest of Kauai. They were willing to check some names for me, so I sent them a reasonably short list. All they…
Carolina’s family was from Kilauea just like my Pacheco’s. She married my grandfather’s cousin, Manoel Pacheco, in Kilauea in 1914. A couple of years later they moved their family to King City. I don’t know much about Carolina except that she was said to make the best pancakes. I guess something like that sticks with a child. Name: Carolina “Carrie” FREITAS-213 Sex: Female Father: John de FREITAS-560 (1866-1937) Mother: Maria GONSALVES CARDOZO-522 (1869-1948) Individual Facts Birth 8 Mar 1898 HI21–22…
Fearless Females #13…Moments of Strength I’ve told this story many times before. It is the story of how my great grandfather was smuggled from Hawaii. Each time I retell the story, I can’t help but think of the events and how they must have affected my great grandmother, Maria (de Braga) Pacheco. Sometime around 1904, my great grandfather, Theodoro Pacheco, found out he had leprosy. It may as well been a death sentence. Hawaiian law forbid lepers from living at…