Machado Family Coat of Arms

The Machado side of the family is quite large.  Great-grandfather Guilherme Augusto Machado and his wife Antónia had 8 children that we know of.  Some of these 8 also had large families and so on.  The Machados still alive today are many and dispersed over 3 continents: Europe, North America and Australia.  This porcelane plate is the work of Ugolina Baptista, a cousin has researched the Machado family coat of arms. Machado means axe which explains its prominent representation on the coat of arms.

Rua do Vigário

Rua do Vigàrio, Lagoa, São Miguel

I would like to visit the places where my ancestors lived...

• Macau where my mother lived when she was a little girl and where her mother died and was buried.  As my mother and her sister advanced in age, the more they spoke of their memories of Macau.  I realize a lot has changed since they lived there but I would like to make that connection.. 
• the island of Faial where my mother, her sister and most of the maternal side of the family was born and lived.  I first visited Faial in 1958 and met some of the family but I was young and don't remember who I met.

This past summer I visited the town of Rosário in São Miguel where my father and most of his family were born and lived. I walked the street where he was born and lived (Rua do Vigário). It must bear little resemblance to what it looked like in 1910 when he was born.

Coincidences

Coincidences...

My maternal grandfather died on December 3, 1925 in Ponta Delgada, on the island of São Miguel Açores.

My father died on December 3, 1955 also in Ponta Delgada.  My grandfather was 46.  My father was 44.

My grandfather married when he was 30 years old.  My father was 34.

Both married in their 30's and both died in their 40's.

Carlos d' Oliveira
(father)

José Augusto Machado
(grandfather)

Surprises

I always thought that my family had all been born in the Azores... my mother's side on the island of Faial and my father's side on the island of São Miguel.  My father's family seem to be from the same town, Rosário, Lagoa.  But his grandmother was born in the town of Peso da Régua in northern mainland Portugal.  My mother's father, as I came to discover, was born in Lisbon, Portugal and her maternal grandfather was born in the US (either New York or Boston).