It’s not what you think. The theme for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge this week is Love. This can be interpreted in many ways. My heart belongs to Antonio Medeiros not because I have a weird crush on my ancestor, but because he expanded my tree by many generations. When my arthritis got…
How Listening to My Grandma Cost Me A Year’s Worth of Family Tree Research
When my grandma asked me if I’d like to write down our family history, I jumped at the chance. She sent me letters detailing my ancestors’ journey to Hawaii. I was so appreciative. Then, I realized she was so far off it cost me a year of research. Her Version of Events In my…
52 Ancestors: The Longest Migration
This is week 6 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. The theme is So Far Away. I decided to write about my great great grandfather, Jozimas de Braga, who had the longest migration of them all. I should note that my great grandmother, Maria (de Braga) Pacheco Smith, his daughter, also had a similar migration…
52 Ancestors: Women Worked on Hawaii’s Sugar Plantations, Too
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…
52 Ancestors: Rosa Boteilho was a Tough Woman
This is my entry for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge, week 3: Tough Woman. It’s not easy to flesh out the stories of Azorean women. You are dealing with baptismal, marriage, and death records. That’s it. Often, women are elusive because of naming practices which involved taking a religious name rather than a…