I crossed an item off my bucket list recently. I spit into a vial and sent it off to Ancestry. In a few weeks, I’ll receive a report telling me where my ancestors came from.
I’ve been intrigued by this process ever since it became available—and affordable. It usually costs around $100, but I took advantage of a Cyber-Monday deal and got it for $59.
My husband, Paul, is an amateur genealogist and has traced his family tree back to France. My lines are not so direct.
My maternal grandparents came from the Azores, an archipelago in the mid-Atlantic that is an autonomous region of Portugal. They specifically came from the island of São Miguel. Like many other Azorean emigrants to the U.S., they settled in an area that ranged (approximately) from East Providence, R.I., eastward to New Bedford, Mass. The Souzas and Mellos found homes and jobs in a Rhode Island town adjacent to Fall River, Mass., which at one point was the leading textile manufacturer in the country.
My paternal great-grandparents also hailed from São Miguel. But they first emigrated to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. There, Manuel Soares Faria (as the family members then called themselves) ran a saloon. He died prematurely, however, probably of cancer. His wife, Anna, took their three sons to Fall River.
There they learned, presumably from other Portuguese immigrants, that in the English- speaking world, their name should be Faria Soares, not Soares Faria. My grandfather was the middle child; Victor Faria Soares.
Victor worked in the cotton mills in Fall River, but had ambitions. He met the daughter of Québécois immigrants, Rose Raymond, and married her. Given the stories my father told me about conflict among the various ethnic groups that populated the city, this Portuguese/Québécois marriage flaunted conventions. Dad had to choose which side to stick with in playground battles; he selected, probably because of his surname, the Portuguese.
Paul has been able trace my Québécois line back to the 1600s because he was familiar with the resources from doing his own family tree. Also, many of these resources are available right here in Maine.
Since Maine does not have a sizable Portuguese-American population, it’s harder to find information. Trying to trace my roots in Brazil and the Azores seems like an insurmountable task. That bucket list item—completing my family tree—is on hold for now.
But I do have my DNA results to look forward to. My paternal grandmother’s line is French, but I do have several native relations too, through French-Indian intermarriage. One is Marie Olivier Sylvestre Manitouabéouich, a Huron, who is quite well known in Québec as the first Indian known to have married a Frenchman, in 1644. Louise Manitouakikoué, a 9th-generation grandmother, was Algonquian. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, Sacajawea’s son, is a cousin. Will my DNA show any Native American ancestry?
I am eagerly anticipating what may lurk in my Portuguese background. The Portuguese were great explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries. Their empire included Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Goa and Macau. The Azores were only settled in the mid-15th century, so who knows what kind of inter-marrying went on?
Flemish settlers migrated to the Azores. Flanders (generally speaking) is the region of Belgium that is Dutch-speaking. There are indications of Flemish heritage in my mother’s family. My grandmother, Emma, had a round face, light hair and blue eyes. My mother and several of her siblings had blue eyes. My grandfather, on the other hand, was tall and angular and had black hair and dark eyes—a more stereotypical Portuguese.
Portugal, along with Spain, was invaded by the “Moors” in 711. This is a vague term that probably refers to the Berber people of North Africa. They were Muslims, and would rule in various forms until the 15th century. Will my DNA indicate any North African roots?
Finally, Portugal, like Spain, conducted an Inquisition against Jews from the 16th century onward. Some Spanish Jews emigrated to Portugal and seemingly converted to Catholicism. Others were native Portuguese Jews, who did the same. However, they still secretly practiced their faith.
Some were found and expelled by the government. Others remained secreted.
My mother would often say she thought there were Jews in our family line. As a child, I didn’t know what she was talking about. As an adult, I thought she was making things up.
But then I remembered a conversation I had with my Mémère (grandmother), Rose Raymond Soares. We were visiting her in Maryland, where she lived with my uncle. Mom and Dad were upstairs in her room, Uncle Vic was in his room, and my sister and I were in the finished basement, on a pull out sofa bed with Mémère. I was about 13.
Maggie was asleep, but my grandmother and I were talking softly. She told me about the saloon in Rio, which she described as a “coffeehouse.” Then, she said, “You know, we are descended from an Indian princess.”
I told this to my father, who was named Raymond in honor of his mom. He set me straight on that supposed early version of Starbucks in Rio (it may have been a brothel, not a coffeehouse) and just smiled and shook his head at the Indian princess story.
Darn. I wanted to be an Indian princess!
It wasn’t until Paul researched my Québècois line that I realized Mémère must have been talking about Marie Manitouabéouich. Anyone who has ever seen “History Detectives” on PBS knows that family stories can get a bit garbled over the years; repeated so often they become like a game of “telephone.”
So who knows what I will learn? I am just eager to know who came before me, and I hope the results are as diverse and intriguing as they can be.
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