Your Portuguese lineage over 4 generations

I trace one line of your family, paternal or maternal, back to your great-great-grandparents, record by record, in the Portuguese archives.

For you if you know a grandparent born in Portugal and want to trace their line.

290 €

What the service includes

  • Searching the birth or baptism, marriage and death records of the ancestors in the chosen line, over 4 generations from you or your parent (up to 7 ancestors).
  • Consulting the digitised parish registers and the district archives.
  • Ordering recent records from the Conservatórias if needed (official fees extra).
  • Cross-checking the information: first names, nicknames, hamlets and dates that change from one record to the next.

What I need from you

  • The full name, dates and places you know for the starting person (often a parent or grandparent).
  • The family documents you have: birth or marriage certificates, Portuguese ID card (cartão de cidadão, cédula pessoal), naturalisation papers, old letters, photos.
  • Family memories: nicknames, villages, trades.

What you receive

  • The family tree of the line in PDF.
  • Copies of all the records found, with their transcription and translation.
  • A clear summary separating the facts proven by a record from the hypotheses still to be checked.
  • The leads for going further.

A concrete example

All you know is the name of your grandmother, Maria da Conceição, who emigrated in 1966, and the name of her village near Viseu. Starting from her birth record, I find her parents’ marriage, then the baptisms and marriages of the previous generations. You receive her line back to your great-great-grandparents, born around 1880, with each record transcribed and translated, and a note of what remains to be confirmed.

Typical case, to illustrate the process.

The records I search look like this: a page of baptisms from 1693, in Castelo (Mação).

Register of baptisms, 1693, parish of Castelo (Mação), from my own research. Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo.

And here is the family tree you receive at the end (typical case, shown in French; yours will be in English):

Turnaround and price

2 to 6 weeks, depending on the state of the archives. 290 € per line. Fees for official records (certidões) are charged at cost, with no mark-up.

If a line stops (foundling, destroyed register), I explain why and what can still be searched.