The dilemma of De Lima

[Bob Spiers]

I have just spent the last few weeks exploring the fascinating Portuguese family of De Lima. Well they began as such, but ended up in America (Hawaii & Bermuda) as plain Lima and others as Lema.

Does anyone remember the famous golfer Tony Lema (back in the 60’s) – if not Google him – as he was the prime reason for my research.

It all began when my grandson (recently married to a Bermudan girl and now living there) in a conversation on Skype told me that his father-in-law was a “sort-of-a-cousin” of the famous golfer Tony Lema (TL) and asked if I knew who he was. (I said I recalled the name and some vague recollection of the fact that -like Jim Reeves and Buddy Holly before him – he had died in a plane crash). Of course my grandson had only learned all this from Google (as later did I to get more detail) but he said he would quite like to find out how the connection came about as no one in the family appeared to know.

I began the research and found it convoluted with fathers naming their sons after themselves –just as they were named after their fathers. (No wonder the suffixes ‘senior’ and ‘junior’ get used so often in America). My brain hurt trying to sort out who was who. I had to leave it several times and return trying a different tack each time. I managed to establish that TL’s father had been born in Bermuda and had emigrated to California in the 30’s It was a start but further progress was impeded because of the lack of Bermuda records; ones that can be uncovered on line I should add.

Then I had the brainwave to create a separate Public Ancestry Tree to record my now quite extensive Lima/Lema family and its associated Silva, Sousa et al. I tried ‘Member connect’ and to my surprise it came up with some half dozen potentials which I soon whittled down to 2 and after further scrutiny, just one which seemed the most promising. I then communicated with its owner via an Ancestry Message.

A lady responded quite quickly (she lived in Texas) and said she that whilst she had an extensive knowledge of various Lima/Lema families in America she could not really help with any Bermudan information. However she knew of at least one genealogical contact in the island and would enquire on my behalf and suggested we exchange emails. After a few back and forth emails requesting details she passed on a glimmer of hope saying that TL’s (Lima) grandmother had a sister (his Great Aunt) who had moved to Bermuda from Hawaii. Perhaps that was the likely source of the ‘cousinship’. The new contact would check with other Bermudan researchers and see what they could find out.

It would take far too long to advance the story piece by piece but as of yesterday I struck gold. I learned one of the daughters of the Great Aunt had married into a family on my list and one of her daughters, had indeed been the mother of my grandson’s father-in-law.

I actually found it easier to convey the information by way of a GenoPro chart and explain that the father-in-law was a second cousin, his mother a first cousin once removed. Hopefully the family will be pleased.

I could not have managed this without the Ancestry help and that of other researchers and is a good example of genealogical co-operation. Long may it continue.

 

[Heather]

Well done Bob, isn't it nice when after lots of work you end up with a good result, sadly not always the case?

 

[Bob Spiers]

After my Portuguese family research and after being given ‘Guest’ status to look over a typical American immigrant family Tree –and communicating with the owner – I discovered just a little of the rationale behind the naming of children da extração português. (Sorry for the use of accents but I have only just learned how to apply Windows International Alt codes to create them).

Here is a brief synopsis of what I discovered which I hope will be of interest to others in the Forum.

Traditionally, Portuguese children have two given names (the first that of the father or mother depending on sex) and the second –based on each individual family tradition – chosen by one of the parents from their own family name pool. The same with family names, there are usually two, the first likely that of the mother (her maiden name) and the second –the prime surname – that of the father.

After becoming American immigrants, names became anglicised – or should I say Americanised - and short forms of names became quite the norm. Likewise the use of nicknames to enable families to identify those with the same first names.

So a father baptised José Antônio would become Joseph Anthony (accents being dropped) and be known as Joe with the middle name only used for formal occasions. A son would be given the same (first) name as his father but with a different middle name. This might be one of the mother’s father’s names. So the son might be Joseph Manuel and be called Joe Manuel, Joe ‘Manny’ or just plain Joe junior.

If name conflicts came up -perhaps with a cousin or a sibling family - it would not be unusual for one of them to reverse their names for family use, or even for the family to give one, or both, a nickname..

As Tony Lema became famous as a golfer, his father (also Tony Lema) was always referred to as Tony Harry Lema or even by choice Antonio Harry Lema.

Here is one approximation of the way a typical Portuguese family would select names for their children. The term ‘ftfp’ stands for names ‘from the family pool’

First son given the same first name as his father with the middle name that of a paternal grandfather or either name of a maternal grandfather.
Second son same name as mother’s father with middle name chosen ftfp
Third son perhaps the middle name of the father with middle name ftfp
Fourth son perhaps the middle name of the mother’s father with middle name ftfp
After that the mother would often choose just ftfp

The thing that made the whole thing fascinating was when each son married; the exact same procedures would be repeated. Thank goodness for varying middle names, but it takes little insight to realise that ‘pool’ names would be virtually the same for all the descendant lines. Only after a few generations of birth on American soil did the tradition gradually filter out, other than for the first child which traditionally never varied.

The use of two family names was of great interest to me, particularly when viewing the names of spouses. So for example Louisa Lucia da Conceicao Cunha (I have dropped accents) had ‘Conceicao’ as her maiden name (how useful is that in genealogical research) and Cunha as her prime family name (that of her father).

After marriage, or even before, she would have chosen to be known as either Louisa (Lou) or Lucy depending on the proliferation of either name in the family pool. The naming of girls might go something like this.

The eldest daughter would almost certainly be given her mother’s first name with a second name likely the second name of her maternal grandmother. (In some instances I found the mother’s two names reversed for the eldest daughter).
The second daughter might be given her mother’s other name (if not part of the eldest daughter’s given names) or more likely one of her father’s mother’s names.
The third and subsequent daughters seem mostly to have been drawn from the family pool of names, which on inspection will almost certainly be drawn from grandparents, aunts & cousins. You get the idea?

So looking down a family line from son to son and daughter to daughter, the same names appear over and over, only the sequencing changes. Luckily girls have a surname change on marriage – but not always!

In Tony Lema’s tree his paternal grandmother (prime maiden name Lima) married a Lima cousin which is perhaps why subsequent children were registered as Lema?

I must emphasise this is just a subjective viewpoint based on my brief dip into Portuguese Family research. I am sure other families of Portuguese extraction have other ways of naming children. However I am told for the eldest sons and daughters, they vary but little: "Son like Father, and Daughter like Mother"

 

[Carla]

Very useful Bob. My ancestors include the de Silva family who married in to my direct ancestors Nunes Martinez. They anglicised their name to Martin in the mid 1800's. My paternal line descends from Spanish and Portuguese Jews and indeed the same names appear over and over again.

 

[Bob Spiers]

Very useful Bob. My ancestors include the de Silva family who married in to my direct ancestors Nunes Martinez. They anglicised their name to Martin in the mid 1800's. My paternal line descends from Spanish and Portuguese Jews and indeed the same names appear over and over again.

Interesting Carla as Tony Lema's mother's maiden name was Clotilda Marie de Silva (with the 'de' dropped so plain Silva). She was born in Hawaii of Portuguese parents (from the Azores actually). Known throughout her American life as Cleo (Cleo Lema).

 

[Carla]

I have really only researched the Nunes Martinez line, but recently I have taken a meander into the non direct ancestral line, which includes names such as Gomas Da Costa, De Abraham Levy, Vitta, Saqui, Rodrigues-Ribeiro, Nunes Cardoso, and De Chaves. Spot the Jewish element and those of Spanish/Portuguese origin. What a mixture! It will take me some time to check these out and I have come to a halt with the Martinez side as the Jewish records were not that well kept until just before the Bevis Marks Synagogue was built. It is hard to match the most distant ancestor here with records in Portugal because the linage tended not to be recorded and families were identified just as you have mentioned previously. Not only that, but as my ancestors were Jewish they were possibly part of the expulsion from Spain and Portugal, and some suggestion has been made that they went to Holland? I may have to wait until I retire from work before I get a good chance to look into this all in depth.

 

[Bob Spiers]

You are going to have your work cut out Carla I can see that but have had similar challenges myself and I usually get there in the end recalling my Headmaster's parting maxim as we all left school: "when faced with life's challenges just remember to practice 'stickatitifness'". I guess you can work that out without further interpretation.

Incidentally I am long retired and I can tell you that makes all the difference when researching and not having to be a slave to the clock. My favourite retirement funny: Two cavemen, one sitting against a rock, another passing by who says (to the rock sitter) "what are you doing"; (Reply) "Nothing". (Response): "but you did that yesterday"; (Response) "I know I wasn't finished"

 

[AndyMick]

Then there was Old Amos (from the Dalesman magazine I think)
"Sometimes I sits and thinks - sometimes I just sits"