Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas! May your celebrations be festive and you hearts be full of childlike joy and laughter.
Abstract Sheets: Portuguese Baptismal Records
Once I became familiar with the patterns in the baptismal records for the village I was working in, I no longer needed to transcribe it word for word. To make my life easier, I developed an abstract cheat sheet with the terms in Portuguese to help me find them in the document. This is my…
Transcription Sheet: Portuguese Baptismal Records
There are ways that you can make transcribing foreign records easier. When I first started researching Portuguese records, I was really confused and frustrated. It would take me hours to get through one record. Then, I developed some aids to help me read the records. I noticed as I was going through the baptismal records…
You Can Too Read Foreign Language Records!
One of the laments I’ve heard ever since I used to host Portuguese genealogy chat on AOL is “But, I don’t know Portuguese (insert your favorite language) so I can’t research the records. Well, I say “Hogwash!” I don’t know any language but English and some question my expertise in that language. Yet, I’ve been…
Finding Your Best Research Method
I used to take copious notes while sitting at a microfilm reader doing research. The main reason was that in most cases I couldn’t make copies of the documents I was viewing. My notes were my source to work from when I got home. Even when I made copies of documents, I’d bring them back…