[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…
First Stop: Passports and Consulate Logs
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…
Finding Maria’s Father
[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…
How do you spell Kelly?
[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…
And We’re Back at the Census
Since I came up with nothing in the 1880 census for San Francisco and the 1850 Census for New Hampshire, I decided to revisit the 1870 and 1860 census. I was pretty sure my family was in San Francisco at that time. As long as they didn’t avoid census enumerators, I should be able to…