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Here we have lists of Surnames, Given Names and Nicknames.

Surnames

Nicknames

Given Names

This chapter (only in the Private sites) contains Descendant Box Charts for some 600 selected people whom we call "Principal Ancestors", coloured pink for females and pale blue for males; white indicates that the gender is uncertain. Some of these charts show thousands of descandants.

This is a gallery showing thumbnails (miniatures of photos). (There are only a few photos in the public sites.) If you click on a thumbnail you will see the full picture.

Usually a group photo will be assigned to one of the members of the group, or to of one of their parents, with links from the pages of other members of the group (who are called "witnesses" to the group photo). In most cases, "hovering" (moving the mouse cursor over a person's face) will reveal his or her name and clicking on the face of one of the group will take you to that person's page.

The photos are divided into galleries: one containing All Photos, and others containing those photos whose captions include a particular name. For example, there is a gallery called Luiz which includes all photos whose caption includes the word "Luiz" – whether as a surname or as a given name, and even if the photo came from the collection of someone named "Luiz".

There is also a gallery devoted to photos in which some individuals have not been identified. If you can identify any of the people whose names are missing, please contact me . (See also Submitting Data below).

Here are listed some notable people – Macanese (and their spouses) and their ancestors who were nobles or who have received national recognition by appointment to one of the National Orders (at the level of Member of the British Empire or above).

The list (in alphabetical order) is long and impressive, with appointees to Orders of Portugal, Britain, France, Spain, Italy and many other countries. (The list is incomplete as many recipients of high military medals have yet to be included.)

As usual, clicking on a name will take you to that person's page; clicking on an icon of a medal will usually display for you the full image.

Here we list some relevant publications on history, genealogy, cuisine, patuá, biographies, etc.; links to other websites; and other material that should interest both casual and serious researchers.

This Chapter includes over 200 recipes that graced the tables of Macanese.

This Chapter is devoted to the Macanese patois (patuá). It contains the entire lexicon of thousands of words and phrases, accompanied by an audio recording of how they should sound.

This Chapter presents satellite images and maps that show interesting places in Macau, some with photos and paintings. To view maps, you must allow JavaScript.

Clicking on a marker on the map will bring up comments about that spot.

Some 800 people have sent in articles, photos, biographical details, corrections, amendments and updates, often with comments about the website, which have always been encouraging. This Chapter acknowledges their help and lists their names and some of their comments.

This takes you to the Search Engine , a powerful means of searching using any of the following: ID number, Surname, Given name(s), Dates of birth and death, Spouse's and Parents' names.

This takes you to the Macanese Families Group Facebook.

To find a person, you can click on NAMES>Surnames at the top of the screen to see a list of all surnames, arranged alphabetically. Find and click on the surname you want, and you will see a list of people with that surname; click on the Given Name of the person you want and you will be taken to the Personal Page (the page devoted to that person. This technique also works for married surnames and surnames changed legally.

Often there are several people with the same or similar names. You might be able to distinguish between them from their dates of birth. Failing that, you would have to look at each of their pages in turn, and decide on the basis of other information – spouse, parents, siblings, place of birth, etc.

She also appears under her married surname and can be found by a search for "Williams".

Often Macanese are only known by their nicknames. In the menu at the top of the page, click on NAMES>Nicknames> nicknames index to see a list of all nicknames.

Clicking on a nickname will take you to that person's page. For example, if you click on "Ariri de Noronha", you will be taken to the page of "Henrique António de Noronha".

The Search Engine provides a fast and powerful method for finding a person. There are two search facilities.

The first allows you to go quickly to an individual's Personal Page; if you know the ID number of a person you are searching for: simply enter it in the box and click on "GO".

The second allows you to search for a person's name, approximate year of birth, etc. Enter the search details in the boxes and click "Search".

Because so many Portuguese names have accented letters, and names can be spelled in different ways, a little more effort may be needed to use this search facility, but it is well worth mastering because it allows very fast searches.

The search is not sensitive to case, so to search for "Maria" you can just type in    maria   .

The search will find any word that contains the pattern of letters you type in. For example, entering a Surname of   silva   will find "DaSilva", "Silva e Souza", etc.

Be careful not to put in any unnecessary spaces because they will also be searched for.

You can also search for nicknames by typing them in the "First & Middle Name(s)" field.

If you enter insufficient details, the result might be a very large number of possibilities. You then need to refine your search details to narrow the search.

There are many variations in the spellings of names (Sousa/Souza, Pina/Pinna, Colaço/Collaço, etc.), especially those with accented letters ("diacritics" like é, ã, ç), so some effort is needed. 

If you want to search for "José" you have to type in the ;é ; ;typing in ;jose ;will not find any occurrences of "José".

Searching tips are provided at the end of this chapter.

Only send data that can be made available publicly.

When submitting data, it would help me greatly if you could:

• state your name and ID number (if you are already in the database),
• if you are not yet in the database, give me enough information to link you in (e.g., names of your parents, grandparents, spouse)
• include the ID numbers of individuals,
• give full names (not just nicknames, for example)
• indicate where you got the information from – such as
  • formal document like a birth, marriage or death certificate
  • newspaper announcement
  • tombstone
  • memory of family members

For dates

• put in years in full (e.g., 1997, not 97)
• use the British system (dd-mm-yyyy – for example, 16-1-1956 or 16/1/1956)
• or spell out the month in full (January 16 1956 or 16 January 1956)
• or abbreviate the month (Jan 16 1956 or 16 Jan 1956)
• do not use punctuation marks (16 Jan., 1956)
• do not enter the day as an adjective (16th Jan 1956)

For photos

• scan photos with a resolution of at least 200dpi
• send photos in one of the standard image formats (.jpg, .tif, .gif, etc) and NOT as inserts in Word or pdf documents
• identify as many people as you can in group photos

Please email the data to me at webmaster@macaneselibrary.org

The search facility has powerful techniques for finding all variations of interest. These are not for the faint-hearted but for those who enjoy a challenge we present a few quick tricks.

This next table outlines the effect of using special symbols to define the search.