[Illustration, wikicommons: Francisco de Goya, Inquisition Tribunal]
CLICK TO SEE: LIST OF NAMES -- PORTUGUESE INQUISITION RECORDS
From: LES NOMS DE FAMILLE DES ARCHIVES DE RECHERCHE DU PORTUGAL « TORRE FONT TOMBE Du livre édité par Flavio Mendes Carvalho ***
Family Surnames that I discovered:
ALMEIDA: Surname for my uncle (husband of my father's sister) and my godfather, Joaquim, who named me "Aldina," a Sephardic/Turkish name. The Almeidas held land in Pedreiras, my paternal parish. Their property was adjacent to or near one of Vazao and/or Sousa land holdings. Likely, the Almeidas are distant blood relatives of mine.
BTW, Almeida is also the name of a town in North-West Portugal -- important militarily because the once-fortified town was near a road connecting Portugal and Spain. Theoretically, if you were trying to escape from the Spanish Inquisition, Almeida might be a good place to cross into Portugal.
BISPO: Great-great grandmother's surname. The women on my mothers' side are referred to as "Bispas." Original Matriarch had 11 surviving children and ran regional trading business; the eldest daughter was my great-grandmother Maria, who had only one surviving child, my grandmother, Maria do Rosario CARVALHO.
***CARVALHO: Common name in native region of my maternal family. Oak forests predominated at time of town's founding; Carvalho is oak in Portuguese. Carvalho is surname of my maternal grandmother. The name Carvalho passed to my mother's two sisters but not to my mother.
According to my mother, her father Francisco didn't like the name Carvalho because just about everybody in the parish was named Carvalho. So when he registered my mother with the town clerk, Francisco dropped the name Carvalho and replaced it with "do Rosario," i.e., of the Rosary, which was my maternal grandmother's middle name. Subsequently, the authorities became more rigid about names, and Francisco had to register his two younger daughters under their mother's surname, Carvalho.
HENRIGUES: Henriques, surname of Maternal relatives; my mom & her cousin share same great-grandparents.
MATTOS: variation of surname of maternal cousin who emigrated to Brazil, and then to NY. Matos means woods. Mata connotes thicket, wild forest, jungle. And, mata is the imperative of "to kill" -- mata-os means Kill Them.
PINTO: Paternal Grandfather. He kept the Pinto name, and was known about town as "Francisco Pinto." Nonetheless, he tried to "upgrade" our identity by taking advantage of bureaucratic chaos and registering as Morgado, which was the surname of the region's original gentry. "Morgado" passed to my mother, but local authorities prevented my grandfather from "upgrading" names of his younger daughters. While Pinto is on the Inquisition rolls, Morgado is not. The Pinto name did not pass to me, but Morgado did.
SIMAO: variation of surname of maternal relatives, and of my mother's godmother & mentor, and of my sister's godfather.
SOUZA: Spanish version of Portuguese SOUSA. Surname of my paternal grandmother, and one of my father's surnames.
VAZ: variation, perhaps original version, of my surname Vazao. Vazao could mean "The Big Vaz." There is an area in Portugal called "Vale de Vazao."
XAVIER: Surname of mother's second cousin
** Translation of French original: "Si votre nom de famille est énuméré ici je peux fournir des données quant a ce qui leur est arrive. Ils furent : Brûlés vifs, garrotés et brulés, esclavage d'office, emprisonnement perpétuel, tortures."
PHOTO courtesy of Clara Castelar, saudades.org
