Finding Felicianno

[Research Journal #6, Entry #12]

I started on the film with 1820 and worked backwards.
As I went further back I noticed a problem. Felicianno's parents were Joao de Mello and Maria Theresa. There appeared to be two couples of this name who had kids at the same time in Maia. One group was from Maia the other was from Povoacao and Maia. I had to be very careful as to how I recorded records. If I mixed them up I might be heading in the wrong direction. My hope was that only one of these couples had a child named Felicianno!

I found what appeared to be my first de Mello 31 Jun 1818. Francisca da Conceicao. Her parents were listed as Joam de Mello of Nossa Senhora Maes de Deus, Povoacao and Maria de Medeiros, of Maia.

I kept reading and writing. In 1807, I finally found my man! Here was my Felicianno. It is no wonder that I miscalculated his birth. He was 17 years old than his wife!

I went back to 1799 where I found the last sibling Antonio.

There were a couple of things I noted from my research.
1. Felicianno's parents were Joam de Mello of Maes de Deus and Maria Tereza de Medeiros of Maia.
2. The name de Mello Castanho was an invention from the 1830s. It did not appear in the baptismal records. To date, I have not found reference to any relative, godparent, etc. using the Castanho surname.
3. Don't stick to formulas! If I had continued with the 20 year theory that I was told so many times, I would have never found Felicianno's baptismal record.
4. Always search for the siblings. I know alot of people like to work couple to couple, generation to generation. I don't. I like to find all possibilities in the film and sort it out later. By searching for the siblings, I was able to determine that Felicianno was older than I thought, that he was a soldier, and that he probably had left his village for duration.

It pays to keep at it! Persistent helped me find Maria da Conceicao's father.

Settling on a Date

[Research Journal #6, Entry #11]

I needed to figure out just how old Felicianno and his siblings were. I went back to the marriage records starting with Felicianno and Rosa's marriage in 1840. I didn't hit a sibling until 1837 when I found Francisca da Conceicao de Mello marrying Elias Pacheco.

I kept going. Each year I seemed to hit another sibling. I went back through the 1830s and reached into the 1820s. I found the last entry on the microfilm in 1819 when Felicianno's sister, Maria Jacinta de Mello, married Joze Boteilho. They were married 30 Jan 1819 in Maia.

Taking all this into account, it meant that Felicianno's siblings were born anywhere from the late 1790s to about 1820. They were almost a generation older than Felicianno's wife Rosa!

Next visit to the FHC, I would be hitting the baptismal records.

Seu Juris

[Research Journal #6, Entry #10]

As you may recall, I found an interesting note in the baptismal records. In a couple of entries where Felicianno was listed as a godparent, his name was followed by the term "seu juris". I asked other Portuguese genealogists what this term meant.

Seu juris roughly "I swear" or "I swear this his him. That was very interesting! Why would the Priest have to swear to the identity of Felicianno when he was born in the village of Maia and probably never left.

I found a possible answer in a baptismal entry in 1837. This entry was for Manoel, son of Jose de Mello Castanho and Maria de Jesus. My Portuguese is not the best but the line went as follows:
...seu tio Felicianno de Mello, soldado no Batalhao desta todo nesta ilha...

Meaning:
his uncle, Felicianno de Mello, soldier in the battalion here on this island
(or thereabouts!)

Aha! My Felicianno had been a soldier in 1837. Could this explain why he seems to have disappeared? He appears as a godparent around 1835 and waits to marry until 1840. Did Felicianno leave the village of Maia for a considerable amount of time? Then when he returned, people aren't quite sure of his identity. The Priest swears in the official records that this his him.

Things started to fall in place. This disappearance might mean Felicianno was much older than I thought. I might have to go back much further in the records to solve this mystery.