Finding Manuel Costa

Anyone who has tried searching for Portuguese ancestors, specifically Azorean ancestors knows how frustrating to the point of infuriating it can be. You'd think that being a small, tight knit group of islanders it should be a piece of cake but yet it seems that once the relatives left their home land, there wasn't a whole lot of looking back. The reality is that the Azorean people were a group a hearty natives who were at the mercy of all the explorers who stopped along the way.

theazoresislands.blogspot.com

Their Azorean landscape was rich and plentiful but over the centuries were stripped of resources. The people became poor and uneducated and when immigration to the New World became a possibility many jumped at the chance and boarded sailing ship bound for Massachusetts, and California as well as the Hawaiian Islands which was so much like home. Once they relocated, most could not afford to ever go back home. The Portuguese were not much more well off in their new environment but they were known to be hard working laborers, fishermen, and farmers. They were hired help that worked the land and seas. They brought new ideas into the orchards of California, the fishing towns of Massachusetts and villages of the Hawaiian Islands.

I recently found information on my 2x great grandfather. A man whose family had been a mystery for many years. He is the first of my Portuguese immigrant ancestors who I can trace back to his home town. Knowing this is a family treasure as many immigrants could not read or write and came to the U.S. in the 1800's at a time when assimilation was how you survived. Having any kind of foreign names, accents or distinguishing characteristics put you lower on the minority list. You spoke only English and children were not taught the native tongue. Many changed their names to sound more American and yet they somehow kept cultural  traditions alive through music, food and religion.

This is the history of Manuel Costa of Furnas, Sao Miguel, Azores.

Manuel was born 14 Setembro 1870 in Furnas, Sao Miguel, Azores to Manuel de Costa and Maria de Jesus. He was baptised by parish priest Fr. Francisco Ignacio Pacheco  on 18 Setembro 1870. Life in the islands was rough and farming was not always fruitful. Sometime in the early 1880's possibly even the late 1870's Manuel and his family left Sao Miguel and traveled the oceans to the Hawaiian Islands. It is believed that all but one of Manuel's siblings were born in Sao Miguel. Joao/John, born in 1884, was born in Hawaii.

S.S. Australia leaving Honolulu

When Manuel was a young man around the age of seventeen he was in Hawaii in the midst of a political firestorm. The Rebellion of 1887 hit in June of that year. Manuel and possible family members booked passage aboard the S.S.  Australia along with the Hawaiian Queen Kapiolani and beloved Princess Liliuokalani and sailed out on April 12, 1887. They arrived in San Francisco on April 20th to start their lives in Oakland, California. The Hawaiian royalty continued to sail toward England to escape the impeding threat of violence.  That summer King Kamehameha Kalakaua signed what is known as the 1887 Bayonet Constitution. It is not known which side the Costas were on but they avoided having to make or be forced to make vote.

From there you could say the rest is history. Manuel married Maria de Jesus in Oakland, California on 22 April 1897 and moved to Santa Clara by the time my great grandmother Caroline "Carrie" was born. There is oral history about the family's roots in or around San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake. Nana Carrie would tell about her grandmother, probably Maria de Jesus (aka Mary Maurice) and how the earthquake left her house in shambles. Her grandmother then walked for about three days for a distance of twelve miles to get to South San Francisco where supposedly the family was living at the time.

Next week my blog post will discuss my process on finding the records on Manuel Costa and how I will continue to search for more stories and records on Manuel Costa. There are still questions to be asked. What was life like in Furnas? Why did they leave the Azores? When did they get to Hawaii and what ship did they take? Did Manuel's entire family travel to San Francisco? How did they end up in Santa Clara? What did he do there? A genealogist's work is never done!

Heidi