My Ancestry (Genealogy, Heraldry and DNA)

Emerson Haderspeck Oliveira "de Jesus" dos Santos Acquesta Califano Pistoso de Souza

That would be my name if I were to have all my great-grandparents' surnames.
Following this idea, I'm presenting below some information I have on each of the surnames. This work will be in constant update as it's far from done.





- Haderspeck / Haderspek 

Family relation: Elizabeth Anna Haderspeck, 1902 (great-grandmother from the mother of my mother's side)

The Haderspeck family is German-speaking, of the people afterwards named Danube Swabian (Danube because of the Danube River and Swabian because of their Swabian origin). The ones who went to the Banat region are called Banat Swabians. Family stories tell that the Haderspecks were originally from Schwarzwald. That would make sense, since Schwarzwald is in Baden-Württemberg, typical land of the old Swabians (Suebi, Alemanni). It is a family tradition, though, not a record: a local historian of Omoljica wrote that an Anton Haderspeck arrived from Saxony between 1766 and 1776, and the oldest document I have, of 1785, only says that Anton came "ex Hungaria", from the Kingdom of Hungary. Whatever the region of origin, the family spoke German and always saw itself as German.


"The Danube Swabians are those German colonists, who settled during the three “Great Swabian Migrations” in Hungary (see map before WW I). The colonization was done by explicit invitation of the Hungarian Landlords, during the reign of the Habsburger as Emperors of the “Holy Roman Empire of German Nation”; to repopulate the land after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire by a contingency of German-Austrian allied forces (1683-1718). They became first known as the “Ungarländische Deutschen” (German-Hungarians). After the dismantling of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire at the end of WW I by the allied Nations, the regions the Germans had settled in Hungary were divided among three nations, Hungary, Romania and the newly created Yugoslavia, thus making the collective name “Ungarländische Deutschen” for the Germans no longer valid."  
(http://donauschwaben-usa.org/history.htm DSNA webmaster at: tcthornton1@sbcglobal.net  © Copyright 2012)
Around 1720, the title of Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was of Charles VI, who was a Habsburg and although Hungary was located beyond the Holy Roman Empire's territory, it was anyway a Habsburg territory, as the map shows. So Germans were encouraged to go and settle the lands just gotten from the Ottoman Empire.

The Haderspeck (among many other German families) went to settle in the south-west of the Banat Region (Vojvodina) which is today's Serbia, Romania and Hungary (at that time Habsburg Hungary). We find a strong Haderspeck presence in the town of Omoljica (german: Homolitz). The oldest register I have of my lineage is the marriage of Anton Haderspeck and Catharina Stopkin in Omoljica on June 26, 1785: the groom is described as "ex Hungaria" and the bride as being from Omoljica. Their son Vitus was baptised there on January 4, 1809, and Vitus's son Alex on June 1, 1860. Alex was the father of my great-grandmother, Elizabeth Anna Haderspek (in São Paulo city registered as Alice Hadespeki). An older version of this page said that Alex was born around 1840 and married to Anna Grösse; that came from a family tree and the parish books proved it wrong. Omoljica belonged to the Military Frontier, the strip along the Ottoman border ruled directly by the army in Vienna, and in 1835 Vitus is recorded as a "confiniarius" (Grenzer), a soldier-farmer of that Frontier.
The Banat Region

Omoljica (Homolitz) at the Danube River. A map part of the Josephinische Landesaufnahme (1769-1772)

"The Danube Basin, part of greater Hungary, was occupied by the Ottoman Empire (Turks) for over 150 years. It was freed by the joint forces of the Germans, Poles, Magyars, Serbs, Croats, and other nationalities under the Austrian Emperor’s mantle in the wars of 1683-1699 and 1716-1718. The Turkish rule ended with the peace treaties of Karlowitz and Passarowitz. The whole of Hungary, most of it devastated and depopulated, was reunited under the Habsburg crown. It was then necessary to repopulate the land with taxpayers and soldiers. A Military Zone was established as a bulwark between the Austrian and the Ottoman Empires (Turks), and settled with soldier-farmers from different nationalities." (http://www.danube-swabians.org/History.htm Copyright © 2010 Rosina T. Schmidt)

The Austro-Turkish War (1716-1718): In 1716, Prince Eugene of Savoy defeated the Turks at Petrovaradin. The Banat and its capital Timişoara was conquered in October 1716.
After this great Christian victory over the Turkish Muslims of the Ottoman Empire resulting in the Passarowitz treaty (1718), there was plenty of land to be settled by people loyal to the Habsburg Monarchy, who held the title of the Holy Roman Emperor. The Emperor in 1718 was Charles VI (Karl VI) and after him his daughter Maria Theresa (who married Francis I, initiating the rule of Habsburg-Lorraine)

"Even though 30,000 Serbs settled in non-military-zone as refugees in 1690, their numbers and agricultural skills were insufficient. The Emperor in Vienna started bringing settlers from all over the Empire, but the Germans from the various duchies, principalities and kingdoms, seemed best suitable for Habsburg ideas, as they were thrifty, law-abiding, diligent, peace loving and willing to strive for better life than they had back ‘home’. The colonization took place in several waves, named after the Emperor of the day: 
1. The "Karl Impopulation" which occurred from 1718 to 1737; 
2. The "Maria Theresia Impopulation", from 1744-1772; 
3. The "Joseph Impopulation", which took place under Joseph II from 1782-1787.
[...]
The Habsburg Emperor reserved all of the Banat area as his own domain. The government was eager for the colonists to be successful in the shortest possible time, so the settlers were given financial aid, tax exemption for some years, a free house in Banat, grain, tools and other items.
[...]
Both Emperor Karl VI and Maria Theresia insisted on Roman Catholic settlers only, but others were eventually permitted to enter the land as well, in order to speed up the colonization.
[...]
The settlers were invited to bring their customs, their language, their teachers, priests and pastors with them. Over time the connection to the old homeland diminished all together, as Danube Swabians became a recognized minority in what later was known as the Empire of Austro-Hungary."
(http://www.danube-swabians.org/History.htm Copyright © 2010 Rosina T. Schmidt)

- In 1740 there was the war of the Austrian succession, but nothing changed after that in the Banat region.

- In 1779, the Banat region was incorporated into the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary (the southern strip, where Omoljica lies, stayed in the Military Frontier, under the army, until 1872-73, when it also passed to Hungary, in Torontál county)

- In 1848, after the May Assembly, the western Banat became part of the Serbian Vojvodina, a Serbian autonomous region within the Habsburg Monarchy.

- During the Revolutions of 1848–1849, the Hungarians demanded independence from the Austrian Empire, taking Banat with them. However, the new Hungarian rule did not recognize the national rights of other nationalities which lived in the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary in that time, so Serbs of Vojvodina took action to separate from the Kingdom of Hungary (which was at that time part of Habsburg Austria).

- In 1849, after the Hungarian revolution was crushed, the Banat (together with Syrmia and Bačka) was designated as a separate Austrian crownland known as the Voivodeship of Serbia and Temes Banat, however, Serbs were not fully satisfied with the new voivodeship:

1) It was more ethnically mixed and included ethnic Romanian eastern parts of Banat, but excluded some areas with Serb majority.
2) An Austrian governor based in Temeschwar ruled the area, while the title of Voivod belonged to the Emperor himself.
3) German and Illyrian (Serbian) were the official languages of that crown land.

- In 1860 Voivodeship of Serbia and Banat of Temeschwar was abolished and most of its territory was incorporated into the Kingdom of Hungary, which was itself part of the Habsburg Austrian Empire.

"Vojvodina remained Austrian Crown land until 1860, when Emperor Franz Joseph decided that it would be Hungarian Crown land again." 

Then 7 years after the decision of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph, came the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie), which existed between 1867 and 1918, until World War I. The Banat Region was part of the new Empire's territory.
Territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

Map of Europe before World War I

On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb member of  a Pan-Slavic movement called Young Bosnia, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Young Bosnia wanted the independence of the southern Austro-Hungarian provinces mainly populated by Slavs and the union of them to other Slavic countries. The assassination inadvertently triggered a chain of events that embroiled Russia and the major European powers. This began a period of diplomatic manoeuvring among Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France, and Britain called the July Crisis. Austria-Hungary delivered the July Ultimatum to Serbia, a series of ten demands intentionally made unacceptable in order to provoke a war with Serbia. When Serbia agreed to only eight of the ten demands, Austria-Hungary declared war on 28 July 1914.


"Serbs, we'll smash you to pieces!" says the Austro-Hungarian propaganda, they couldn't be more wrong

The dispute between Austria-Hungary and Serbia escalated into what is now known as World War I, and drew in Russia, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. Within a week, Austria-Hungary had to face a war with Russia, Serbia's patron, which had the largest army in the world at the time. The ramifications of the war were manifold. When World War I ended, Austria-Hungary was broken apart, and Hungary lost much land to both Yugoslavia and Romania in the Treaty of Trianon. Serbia assumed the leading position in the new Kingdom of Yugoslavia, joined by its old ally, Montenegro. 

After World War I, the situation to the ethnic Germans in the ex-Southern Austro-Hungarian Empire was very delicate because of the Slavic nationalist sentiment, which was in nature anti-Germanic, so slowly a German exodus from the area was initiated having it's peak during and after World War II.
Alex Haderspek, born in 1860 (son of Vitus Haderspek, born in 1809), took the decision to leave Banat. After a long way with transit visas through Zagreb and Switzerland, and finally departing from Holland, the family landed at the Port of Santos on March 11, 1924, onboard a vessel called Orania (Koninklijke Hollandsche Lloyd). That date is written on the foreigner registration cards of his sons Johann and Aleksa. I haven't yet found Alex, his wife Eva Mathes (Haderspek) or my great-grandmother Elizabeth Anna Haderspek (1902) on a passenger list, so their own crossing is deduced from the sons' documents. Alex and Eva went to live in Casa Verde, São Paulo city, where Alex worked as a mason and died on October 11, 1929; Eva died in the same house in 1951. Johann's branch went to live in Santo Amaro. According to the picture above, the Orania vessel would depart to Buenos Aires on the very same day it arrived in Santos.

"The History of the German settlement in Santo Amaro (São Paulo), begins in 1826.
By the end of the "Primeiro Reinado", after the marriage of Dom Pedro I of Brazil to Amélie of Leuchtbenberg, there was a huge concern in the Brazilian Empire about the wars that were taking place in the South and also a concert with the lack of required workforce for São Paulo's agriculture.
As a result, the Emperor hired Major Johann Anton von Schaeffer to search for soldiers in Europe to fight in the southern wars and settlers to work with the local agriculture.
During that period, many European countries, mainly Germany, were going through a great
economic recession then by promising rewards, wealth and land, it was easy for Von Schaeffer to get people from the Southern states of Germany to attend to those needs.
And by believing in those promises, this was how from December 13, 1827 on, hundreds of
German countrymen began to depart in Brazil (first at the Port of the City of Rio de Janeiro and later at the Port of Santos, São Paulo), then distributed among the settlement areas."
(Julio Guilger Simões, http://www.sampaonline.com.br/reportagens/santoamaro2007set24coloniaalema.htm, translated to English by Emerson de Souza)

Padaria Allemã (German Bakery) owned by the Gilger family in Santo Amaro, 1891.
(https://www.dw.com/pt-br/primeiros-alem%C3%A3es-em-sp-esperaram-mais-de-um-ano-por-terras-prometidas/a-4440092)

Argus was the name of the first ship used to take the first Germans to Brazil, with the coordination of Von Schaeffer in 1824. The Germans first arrived in Santo Amaro on February 12, 1829, mostly from Hundsrück.

What happened to the Danube Swabian who stayed in the Banat Region?
Straight after World War I (1914-1918) the "Serbian" Banat became (in sequence):
The population of Banat, Bačka and Baranja (within the borders defined by the peace conference) was 1,365,596, including: 
29.1% Serbs, 27.71% Hungarians, 23.10% Germans, and others.

Danube Banovina had 16.3% of Germans. 

World War II then came along and then in 1941 the Axis Powers occupied the Danube Banovina, separating its territories. The remainder of the former Danube Banovina (including Banat, Šumadija, and Braničevo) became part of the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia. However, Banat had autonomy as a region ruled by its ethnic German minority.


The 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen" (7. SS-Freiwilligen Gebirgs-Division "Prinz Eugen") was a German mountain infantry division of the Waffen-SS, the armed wing of the German Nazi Party that served alongside but was never formally part of the Wehrmacht during World War II in Yugoslavia. Formed in 1941 from both Germans and Volksdeutsche (ethnic German) volunteers and conscripts from the Banat, Independent State of Croatia (NDH), Hungary and Romania, it fought a counter-insurgency campaign against communist-led Yugoslav Partisan resistance forces in the occupied Serbia, NDH and Montenegro. It was given the title Prinz Eugen after Prince Eugene of Savoy, an outstanding military leader of the Habsburg Empire who liberated the Banat and Belgrade from the Ottoman Empire in the Austro-Turkish War of 1716–18.

 "After the initial rush of Volksdeutsche to join, voluntary enlistments tapered off, and the new formation did not reach division size. Therefore, in August 1941, the SS discarded the voluntary approach, and after a favorable judgement from the SS court in Belgrade, imposed a mandatory military obligation on all Volksdeutsche in Banat, the first of its kind for non-Reich Germans"
(Lumans 1993, p. 235.)


Photos indicate that some Haderspeck who stayed in Omoljica after the ones of my family had gone to Brazil went to join the Prinz Eugen Division, but why would Danube Swabians join Hitler?
" Generally summarizing, the Germans, who made their homes in Eastern European countries, were separated from the German and Austrian-Hungarian Empires after the First World War. The Germans, were now living in Eastern European countries, although citizens of those countries but yet as foreigners in these countries, because of unfair treatments. The developments created an intolerable political situation helping the National Socialistic Movements to come to power in Germany. As history has shown, it was the unfair treatment of the German population, by their adversaries in those countries that ultimately lead to the Second World War. This war would bring on the end of the “Ungarländischen Deutschen”, known today as Danube Swabians, in Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia."


This excellent account on the Danube Swabians by Hans Kopp shows how hard it was for the Germans to organise themselves and be politically and culturally represented in Slavic lands, in times that elements as nationalism, search for cultural / ethnic identity and supranational communism were at the door.

"By 1944 it was clear that the local population (Hungarians, Croats, Serbs, Romanians) used the Danube Swabians as scapegoats for the Nazi’s atrocities. The Partisans in the Yugoslavian areas viciously attacked many Donauschwaben villages. [...] However, most ethnic Germans considered themselves as having had nothing to do with the Nazis at all and decided to stay, soon to regret it bitterly. 

The period 1944 through 1948 was the most tragic part of the Danube Swabians 250 year history. During those years they were subjected to victorious communist partisans and the Red Army atrocities; they were plundered, shot en masse, incarcerated and manhandled or were sent to the Siberian Slave Labor Camps. They were dying in the thousands during those years. They were sent to the Baragan Steppe in Romania or the Death Camps in Yugoslavia with the goal to eliminate them from the earth, under the pretext of ‘collective responsibility and collective guilt’. 

At the Potsdam Conference between 17th of July to 2nd of August 1945, the Allies (USA, Great Britain, Soviet Union) made the decision to remove the ethnic German population from outside of Germany proper, with the understanding that it should be carried out ‘in orderly and humane manner’. In the practice this ‘humane manner’ was nothing but illegal land-grab and inhumane treatment of some 15 million ethnic Germans of who five million were the Danube Swabians. Most managed to escape to Austria or Germany, but more than 1.5 million lost their lives between the end of WWII and 1949."
(http://www.danube-swabians.org/History.htm Copyright © 2010 Rosina T. Schmidt)

(Redrawing Nations: Ethnic Cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944-1948.  Edited by Philipp Ther and Ana Siljak. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc: 2001.)

By reading all that it's clear that the Haderspeck who came to Brazil in 1924, a few years after the first World War, did a good deal. Although Germans, Japanese and some minor nationalities in Brazil suffered persecution during the second World War, nothing could be compared to what happened to those in the Slavic lands. 

By the last years of the second World War, the partisans were brutal and bloody and Banat fell officially in the hands of communism, although not directly with the USSR but with the equally ruthless Josip Broz Tito.

According to a list published in Wikipedia, the number of Germans radically diminished in the Serbian Banat region. Many of them were killed and some fled:


Year    German Population
1910 -  22.1%
1931 -  22.6%
1948 -  2.9% (3 years after the official end of the war in 1945)
2002 -  0,1% (908 people)

The Haderspeck grew prosperously in Brazil even if at first it was a challenge. My great-grandmother Elizabeth Anna Haderspeck (Alice Hadespeki) went to marry a Brazilian from Minas Gerais named José Francisco de Oliveira; they lived in Casa Verde (São Paulo city) and in Ipaussu before settling in Sorocaba, São Paulo. It is said that Elizabeth Anna's brother called Johann (João, Jovan) could speak many languages: German, Romanian, Hungarian, Russian (or actually Serbian), maybe this was a characteristic of almost all of them, once they were Germans living in a region of quite a mixture of nationalities. Elizabeth Anna ended up quite distant from the Danube Swabian culture but she enjoyed telling many stories. Those Haderspeck in Santo Amaro kept close to other Germans and I know at least one of them who have been living in Germany for a long time now. I was also informed that Elizabeth Anna's brother Aleksa Haderspek had a business in Londrina, Paraná (Southern Brazil) and during my research I found a Danube Swabian settlement in Paraná called Entre Rios in Guarapuava, later on I discovered he was in contact with the group while there.

The Danube Swabian Coat of Arms
The Eagle: As a distinctive imperial sign the eagle holds his wings protectively over the Pannonian countryside (Roman province) in the central region of the Danube and symbolizes the obligation of the Holy Roman Emperor to protect those borders of the Empire. The emperor Charlemagne chose the eagle as imperial symbol in the 9th century. Since the 12th century it has represented power and unity as the German coat of arms.

The wavy chevron: Symbolizes the river Danube. 

The Fortress: Amidst fertile farmland which the Danube-Swabians made arable stands the strong fortress of Temeschburg (Timisoara), a symbol of the imperial, German defense fortifications and military border against the Turks. The six towers of the fortress represent the six main regions of settlement for the Danube-Swabians: Kis (Little) Alföld (the mountains of south-western Hungary), Swabian Turkey (south of Lake Balaton), Slavonia-Syrmia, Batschka, Banat, Sathmar with the Crisana-Maramures region.

The Half Moon: The fortress is flanked by the half-moon, the temporal symbol of Islam representing the Turkish threat to Europe which was declining during the 17th and 18th centuries.

The Sun: Then there is the bright rising sun, symbol of Christ, who is honored as the sun of justice and true light-a focal point for the future, and therefore representing victory and a new beginning for the Western Christian culture against barbarity and retreating Islam. This victory was accomplished in the Pannonian basin during the 18th century. 
(adapted from: http://donauschwaben-usa.org/history.htm)

 Haderspek or Haderspeck?
According to my readings I can now state a probability in this surname's variation. Those of the family might have left Germany as Haderspeck with the "ck" (as it is in Germany still nowadays) and after many years in Slavic territory the name might have changed a little and got a more Slavic touch becoming Haderspek, once "ck" is not common in Slavic/Hungarian languages. It's also important to remember that the level of literacy was low at that time, so it mattered the most how the surname would than than how it would be written. Nowadays it's possible to see even more variations as Hadespeki, Haderchpeck and so on.

My great-grandmother Elizabeth Anna Haderspek holding me on her lap, 1984. When registered in Brazil she became Alice for she was nicknamed "tanti Lissi" which in English will be aunt Lissi, sounding like Alice.


Elizabeth Anna Haderspek
Variations: Elizabeth Anna Haderspeck, Alice Haderchpek, Alice Hadespeki
Birth Date and Local: October 21, 1902 (family letter and family trees) or October 20, 1902 (her own civil marriage certificate of 1939), in Omoljica, Banat, Austro-Hungarian Empire, according to the family. Her baptism was not found in the Omoljica books, and the 1939 certificate gives a different birthplace that I can't yet read with certainty
Religion: Roman Catholic / Evangelical (later)
Lineage: Daughter of Eva Mathes (Eva Malheb, Eva Malher, Eva Haderchpek) (c. 1868) and Alex Haderspeck (Alexandre Haderchpek) (1860); Alex Haderspeck was the son of Vitus Haderspeck (1809) and Magdalena Szabó; Vitus was the son of Anton Haderspeck (c. 1756) and Katharina Stopkin (Stopka) (1765). Eva Mathes was the daughter of Michael Mathes (1820) and Catharina Sommer
Elizabeth Anna's siblings were:
Johann Haderspeck (Jovan Haderspek, João Haderchpek) (1891)
Michael Haderspeck (Mihajlo Haderspek) (1893-1915)
Katharina Haderspeck
Magdalena Haderspeck (1896)
Anna Haderspeck (Tupan) (1900)
Maria Haderspeck (Maria Harderchpek)
Alex Haderspeck (Aleksa Haderchpek, Alexandre Haderspeck) (1908)
Margarida Haderspeck (Clausen)
and three who died as small children in Omoljica: Anna (1886-1889), Katharina (1888-1891) and Anton (1895)





- Oliveira 

Family Relation: José Francisco de Oliveira, 1905 (great-grandfather from the mother of my mother's side)

José Francisco de Oliveira was born in São João Nepomuceno, Minas Gerais. For a long time the family believed he was the son of a Portuguese man, but the documents say otherwise: his father, Francisco Francelino de Oliveira, was born around 1879 in Guarará, also in Minas Gerais, and died in Sorocaba in 1959. Francisco Francelino's parents, Francelino de Oliveira and Leopoldina Angélica de Jesus, were from Minas Gerais too, and José's mother was Altina Aleixo de Jesus. So this Oliveira line had been Brazilian for at least three generations, and I can't say when or from which part of Portugal it came. It is believe that the surname Oliveira (Olive Tree) comes from the Roman Empire, from the gens Oliva, those gens were kind of clans at that time. It has toponymic roots, meaning that it was named after a local, Paço de Oliveira, in the parish of Santa Maria de Oliveira, municipality of Arcos de Valdevez. 


Oliveira mansion nowadays
(https://rfm.sapo.pt/content/5313/es-oliveira-aqui-esta-a-historia-do-teu-apelido)

The archbishop of Braga D. Martinho Pires de Oliveira (Martim Pirez de Oliveyra) inaugurated a "morgado" (majorat, a kind of formalisation of the family name through possessions) in 1306 in Évora using lands inherited from his father Pedro Oliveira, the first one to use the surname. 


Although having instituted the first Morgado de Oliveira in Evora, a second opinion suggests that Martinho wasn't the first Lord of the Morgado. The great-grandfather of Martinho (Martim) also called Martim de Oliveira born in 1175 might have already been the first Lord, or even others of his ascendancy. Howbeit, one can conclude that if Martim Pirez de Oliveyra had to start a morgado in 1306, it means it wasn't there before, or it wasn't official or it had been lost previously. 

The Oliveira coat of arms might have been created even before the heraldic rules have been set, as it was originally represented only by a gules shield and an olive tree inside of it.


None of the noble history above can be connected to my family by any document: Oliveira is one of the most common Portuguese surnames. Getting back to my great-grandfather José. He got married to Elizabeth Anna Haderspeck (Alice Hadespeki, mentioned previously); they lived in Casa Verde (São Paulo city) and in Ipaussu and then went to live in Sorocaba, São Paulo. He was already in Sorocaba on February 19, 1948, the date of his reservist certificate, issued there. Both of them were Roman Catholic but not really dedicated to their faith. José got converted to the Evangelical/Protestant faith, in a pentecostal church named Assembléia de Deus, soon but after much endurance, Elizabeth Anna follows the same path and they kept the new faith until the end of their lives. Assembléia de Deus is the biggest evangelical and pentecostal church in Brazil, started in 1914 by the Swedish missionaries Gunnar Vingren and Daniel Berg. 
José Francisco de Oliveira (photo circa 1945)
Variations: José Francisco (having Francisco as his surname)
Birth Date and Local: 1905 in São João Nepomuceno, Minas Gerais, Brazil (the day February 23 comes from a family tree; no document confirms it)
Religion: Roman Catholic / Evangelical (later)
Lineage: Son of Francisco Francelino de Oliveira (c. 1879, Guarará, Minas Gerais) and Altina Aleixo de Jesus; Francisco Francelino was son of Francelino de Oliveira and Leopoldina Angélica de Jesus



- de Jesus 

Family Relation: Maria Tereza de Jesus (great-grandmother from the father of my mother's side)

I have very little information about her, unfortunately. The registrations of her sons say she was a native of Ceará, in Northeast Brazil, and that she and José were married only in the Church. My grandfather's marriage record (1950) says she died in 1927, when he was still a baby; the family memory is that she died when he was 8 years old. I can't yet say which is right, and that early death made it even more difficult for information to survive. The surname "de Jesus" was often used by the poor, who didn't know exactly their family names or never had any. Although there is a more proper  and historical "de Jesus" or "Jesus" or still "de Jesús" surname, I don't think that's the case, once this part of my ascendancy is composed by poor people. She, curiously, didn't adopt her father's surname "da Silva".

Maria Tereza de Jesus
Variations: -
Birth Date and Local: Unknown; native of Ceará (documents), probably Santana do Cariri, Brazil
Religion: Unknown, probably Roman Catholic
Lineage: daughter of João Moreno da Silva and Gertrudes Maria de Jesus.


- Bezerra/Santos 

Family Relation: José Alves dos Santos, 1890 (great-grandfather from the father of my mother's side)

José was born in Ceará, Northeast Brazil, according to the registration of one of his sons. By 1950 he was living in Araripina, Pernambuco, just across the Chapada do Araripe from Santana do Cariri, which is why I used to think he was born in Pernambuco. Being José's case the same of his wife, Maria Tereza de Jesus, I have no information about him, not even a photo of any of them. So then I am going to focus on their son, my grandfather called Silvino. Silvino was medium height, had a brownish skin colour, quite tanned, straight hair and light brown eyes. Even when I tried to consider his appearance and put it together with the history of the place he lived it was hard to imagine how my great-grandparents looked like, once the region had some admixture during the last 500 years. First there was the indigenous people, then came the Portuguese, then they brought the African slaves then the Dutch conquered the place for 24 years. 

A recent study analysing the DNA of people from the "caatinga" ecoregion in Ceará (my grandfather was born in there) stated the following results: 56,8 % Europe (Portugal and Holland); 22,9% Kenya, Africa; 20,3% Bangladesh, Asia (which refers to the origin of the Brazilian indigenous population). It gives a hint but doesn't really help. In 2026 I could finally look at this through my own DNA: I am about 7% African and 4% Indigenous American, all of it inherited through my mother, and it comes from both of her parents' sides, so part of it is Silvino's. The test can't tell which region of Africa or which Indigenous people it comes from. 

The surname "dos Santos" or "Santos" has an Iberian origin, being used for those who were born on November 1, All Saints' Day, it was also used by the Cristãos Novos (new Christians), that is, a Christianity's convert of Jewish origin mostly from the 15th Century on. A third case for this surname's use is the hypothesis that in the case of the abolition of slavery in Brazil (1888), many Africans located in Bahia (at that time Real Província da Bahia de Todos os Santos, Royal Province of All Saints' Bay) would adopt "dos Santos" as their surname; Nowadays Bahia is the state in Brazil which has the second highest number of the aforementioned family name, which makes the hypothesis somehow close to valid (the first state with highest use for the surname is São Paulo (southeast Brazil), which had from the 1960's on a huge migration from northeasterns, surely including Bahia). That being said, I would suppose that José would fit on the third case mentioned, but there are two important points to state: Silvino didn't present strong African features but a tanned (not exactly black) skin and his father José was born in 1890, too close to the end of the slavery, maybe too early for this use of "dos Santos", but If we are to hold to this hypothesis anyway, we could also think he is the son or grandson of a former slave man who was freed before 1888 and already at that time adopted the surname "dos Santos". Another hypothesis is that he is a descendant of a "dos Santos" European man who came to America and more unlikely but not impossible is that he is a descendant of a convert Jew. The documents I found later point in another direction: José's father was called Santiago Alves Bezerra, and in one registration José himself appears as José Alves Bezerra. So "dos Santos" seems to be just the form that stuck to him in the civil registry, while Bezerra was the family's own name, and none of the three hypotheses above is needed to explain it. My DNA results also show nothing that points to Jewish ancestry.

José's son, Silvino, was born on September 8, 1926 in a village called Santanópole (today called Santana do Cariri), in a region near Crato in the state of Ceará. José lived at Sítio Salão, in the same municipality, at least from 1918 to 1923, and later moved to Pernambuco, which is the next state after crossing the south border as shown in the map above

 Silvino's mother died when he was still a child and I don't believe his father was present in his childhood. At some point he went to live in Crato, which was a kind of a downtown in the area. This is the full name he would naturally get, that is, "Silvino de Jesus dos Santos", two changes happened. The first change was the non adoption of the mother's surname "de Jesus" as middlename (usual in Brazil), which somehow proves "de Jesus" wasn't really a surname (as mentioned earlier in the "de Jesus" topic), the second change is that he adopted "Bezerra" as his family name instead of "dos Santos", Silvino adopted the surname of his paternal grandfather "Santiago Alves Bezerra" (his own father also appears once as José Alves Bezerra).

Silvino then moved to the State of São Paulo to work as a driver for the Companhia Nacional de Estamparia Fábrica São Paulo, in Sorocaba, starting there in 1947, at the age of 20. This textile company was funded in 1909 by the British John Kenworthy.



In 1952 he went to the capital of São Paulo state to be a driver for the bus company Nossa Senhora Aparecida. In 1956 he moved to São Roque (today Mairinque's area) still in São Paulo state to work for the agriculture industry Alberto Cocozza S.A. which belonged to an Italian immigrant of the same name. He remained until 1958 and then after a time with no records in his working papers, he gets a temporary job (from 1961 to 1962) at the public department of the National Services of Leprosy (created in 1941 by the National Department of Health) also as a driver in the city of Rio de Janeiro, State of Guanabara.

José Alves dos Santos
Variations: -
Birth Date and Local: 1890, Ceará (later resident in Araripina, Pernambuco)
Religion: Unknown, probably Roman Catholic
Lineage: son of Santiago Alves Bezerra and Maria Francisca da Conceição (her name varies from document to document).



- Acquesta 

Family Relation: Caetana Acquesta (great-grandmother from the mother of my father's side)
The coats of arms of Calabria region and the comune of Fagnano Castello

Acquesta is one more of my Italian ancestors' surnames which aren't easy to get information about. My grandmother couldn't contribute much to my research. As far as I know, they come from Fagnano Castello, Calabria (Southern Italy): the town comes from family trees, and the death record of one of Caetana's uncles confirms the province, Cosenza. Caetana Acquesta was already born in Brazil, on August 18, 1902, in Cambuci, São Paulo city. The family was in São Paulo by 1892, when her elder brother Bruno was baptised at the Sé, and her grandfather Bruno Acquesta, born in 1835, died in São Paulo in 1903. Her mother's family, the Caputto, is placed by a family tree in Mongrassano, in the same province. Acquesta looks like "this" in an older way of writing ("questa" in modern Italian and "aquesta" in old Spanish), but it might also have its origins having "Acqua" as a source word (Acque is the plural of Acqua). If we think of the suffix of the surname, we have "esta", which is not a suffix in Italian but "ista" is (and there is the Acquista surname), then the surname will form what in English would be "Waterist". 

Caetana Acquesta

Caetana Acquesta
Variations: Caetana Accuesta, Caetana Acquista
Birth Date and Local: August 18, 1902, Cambuci, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Religion: Roman Catholic
Lineage: Daughter of Concetta Caputto (Concetta Caputo) and Luis Acquesta (Luigi Acquesta, Luiz Acquesta); Luis Acquesta was son of Bruno Acquesta (1835) and Thereza Ferrante (Acquesta)




- Califano 

Family Relation: Roberto Califano (great-grandfather from the mother of my father's side)


The coat of arms of (lef to right) Nocera Inferiore, Provincia di Salerno and Pagani

Califano is an Italian surname with high incidence (and probable originary) in Campania, a region at the South West of Italy, precisely in the comunes of Pagani and Nocera Inferiore in Salerno (but also with small number in other areas nearby and also Rome). My own Califanos come from exactly this area: Elia Califano was born in Angri, the next town, on January 28, 1868, and he married Rosa Farina, born in Pagani, in Pagani on June 11, 1892.
Considering the etymology we could say the surname comes from the Arabic word Khalifa, which means a leader of a Caliphate. This etymological connection is supported by the Italian History, once we can see a considerable Muslim presence in (mostly Southern) Italy in the early middle-age times. Despite the possible Arabic origin, I see no clear traces of any middle-eastern element on the Califanos of my family, neither physically nor culturally. My DNA results of 2026 agree: the part of me that comes from this side looks like any other Southern Italian DNA, with nothing specifically Arab in it.

Elia Califano (1868) came to São Paulo and disembarked at the port of Santos with his wife Rosa Farina (Califano) (1868) and his son Giuseppe Califano (1893). They came from Italy onboard a vessel written as "Mateoro" and entered the Hospedaria de Imigrantes of São Paulo, coming from Santos, on August 3, 1895. The register of the Hospedaria (book 50, page 113) has them as Elia, 26, head of the family, Rosa, 25, his wife, and Giuseppe, 2, their son. According to the immigration registers, some other Italian "capifamiglia" were present as Carline Richi, Nicola Rasino, Josepe Bianchi, Giovane Melchion, among others. In this very same register book reads "Elia Califaro", so a mistake was made which made me search for a second source: The passenger list of Mateoro. But so far I couldn't find it anywhere neither could I find any info about that Mateoro ship. When I pay a visit to the Immigration Museum in São Paulo City, I might have new info. The clerk of this register wrote names by ear (Califaro for Califano, Josepe for Giuseppe), so the name of the ship is probably distorted too. Family trees give a different crossing, June 4, 1896, on the ship Re Umberto, but I have seen no document for it, while the 1895 entry is the original register and the three names and ages fit my family. Regardless of this name mistake, Elias is registered with his correct name on the baptising of his daughter Maria Califano on August 2, 1903 at the Catedral Metropolitana de São Paulo. She was baptised by the priest Antonio Pereira Bicudo and she had Moyses Califano as godfather and Palmira Fierre as godmother.

Above there is the coat of arms of the Califano family. It was taken from a book called Stemmario Vesuviano. I poorly translated the coordinations to English (I didn't research much about the technical words of Heraldry). As there was just this black and white version, I made myself a new version. I'm not a specialist but nowadays it's not difficult to work with some graphics.
I followed the maximum I could the commands written in the Stemmario Vesuviano for this crest.


A friend and Roberto Califano


Roberto Califano
Variations: Umberto Califano (the name used by the family; the Brazilian documents say Roberto), Roberto Califaro, Humberto Califano, Roberto Califoni
Birth Date and Local: February 17, 1899 (family tree), São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Religion: Roman Catholic
Lineage: Son of Elia Califano (Elias Califano) (1868, Angri) and Rosa Farina (Rosa Favina, Rosa Faria) (1868, Pagani); Elia was son of Salvatore Califano and Margherita Visconti




- Pistoso 

Family Relation: Ida Pistoso, 1913 (great-grandmother from the father of my father's side)

Pistoso is an Italian surname with high incidence in Verona, where the family of Ida's father comes from (her mother's family, the Ambrosi, is recorded only as coming from "Italy"). Verona is a comune of the Verona Province, in the Veneto region, Northern Italy. I could also find a low incidence but noticeable presence of the surname in Brescia, maybe another branch of the family. 

Pistoso is not a popular surname in Italy and I couldn't find any information about its origin. There is a word in old Greek which is "pistós (πιστός)" meaning faithful, trusty and loyal. Pistoso never sounded too Italian to my ears, and I once thought it could have a Greek origin, as mentioned above, since the presence of Greeks in Italian territory was intense throughout History. Looking at it again, the form itself is ordinary Italian: "st" is common in Italian surnames (Costa, Testa) and so is the ending "-oso" (Amoroso, Generoso). What is true is that the surname is extremely rare and concentrated in the Veneto, so the Greek idea remains just an assumption, nothing concrete.

For a long time I couldn't find the Pistoso in the immigration books. A FamilySearch entry now cites an immigration record of Ida's grandfather, Geraldo Pistoso, landing in Rio de Janeiro on July 1, 1895, on the steamer Maranhão, "arriving with daughters" (I haven't seen the image yet). Before leaving Italy the family had moved from Verona to the south: a daughter, Ottavia, was born in Santa Marina, province of Salerno, in 1891. Ida's father, Thomaz, first appears in São Paulo in 1908, when he married Amelia Ambrosi in Brás. The Ambrosi had come earlier: Amelia's father, Cesare Ambrosi, is recorded as arriving on December 23, 1888.

Ida Pistoso (right)


Ida Pistoso
Variations: Ida Pistozo
Birth Date and Local: December 15, 1913 (the date fixed by a court correction in 2016; her 1930 marriage register says February 5, 1913), São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Religion: Roman Catholic
Lineage: Daughter of Thomaz Pistoso (Tomasso Pistoso) (Tomas Pistozo) (1882) and Amelia Ambrosi (Amelia Ambrozi, Amelia D'Ambrozio, Amelia Ambrosio) (1886); Thomaz Pistoso was son of Geraldo Pistoso (Gerardo Pistoso) and Maria Angela Tegani (Maria Angela Pegani, Maria Pegani); Amelia Ambrosi was daughter of Cesare Ambrosi (César Ambrosi, Cézar Ambrozi) (1849) and Rosa Lorenzani (Rosa Lorenzonni, Rosa Lorenzane)



- Souza 

Family Relation: Antonio de Souza (great-grandfather from the father of my father's side)

Souza is a very popular surname both in Brazil and Portugal. There is also a variation of it which is Sousa, but according to researches, they have the same origin, once they sound the same. Non popular surnames are very difficult to to research about but so are the popular ones, they are so popular that it's hard to trace a family timeline, the whole researching process gets very polluted but I was lucky I could trace precisely the origin of this surname back to Portugal, all documented, back to 1775, and I know exactly where to look to get even earlier on the timeline.



It is believed the Sousa river (Felgueiras, Northern Portugal) is the origin of the surname Souza/Sousa, which is totally connected to the early History of Portugal. 

Egas Gomes de Sousa (1035 -?) was the first of his lineage to use the surname Sousa. He served as governor of the entire region of Entre Douro e Minho. He was captain-general, and as such in combat he won the King of Tunis, in a battle near the town of Beja. He was buried in the Monastery of Pombeiro.

Lineage
D. Sueiro Belfaguer (his profile on Geni)
First Lord of The House Souza (c.875-925) (descendant of the previous Gothic kings)

D. Hugo Soares Belfaguer (c.880-950)

D. Hufo Hufes

D. Vizoi Vizois

D. Echega Guiçoi

D. Gomes Echigues

D. Egas Gomes de Sousa
Seventh Lord of The House Souza (c.1035)
Married Dona Châmoa Gomes, a.k.a. Gontinha (or Goncinha) Gonçalves, great-granddaughter of King Ramiro II Of León.
The coat of arms of the Souzas, and some variations due also to marriages, as seen below: 
Genealogical graphic and coat of arms found at Elpenor de Sousa's blog


What was before the mansion of the Souzas (Solar dos Souzas) is today the Monastery of Santa Maria de Pombeiro. Check its History (photos' source)



The documents show no link between my family and this noble house. My line goes back to Joana de Souza, baptised in 1775 in Ínsua (Vila de Castendo, today Penalva do Castelo, Viseu), who received the surname from her mother, Maria de Souza. Joana was a single mother: her son Joaquim de Souza was born in 1808 and his father is written in the baptism as "incerto" (unknown). So the surname reached us through women, and my direct male line starts with a man whose name was never recorded; my Y-DNA (R-L21) tells the story of that man, not of the Souzas. Joaquim married in Gouveia in 1844, his son Augusto was baptised there in 1849 and married in the freguesia of Trinta, in Guarda, in the Beira Alta, in 1871. From then on the family lived in Trinta until coming to São Paulo. The older roots in Trinta come through the wives: the Nunes, the Tagalha and the Chantre.



The coats of Arms of Guarda and Trinta. Inside Trinta's shield there is a spinning wheel and my great-grandfather was exactly a weaver, occupation he learned from his father, who learned from his father...

Antonio de Souza already in São Paulo, photo taken in June 11, 1935

One more time I must say I can't find any immigration record of the entrance of the Souzas in Santos, but according to family talks here, I believe it was in the 1920s, approximately 1921. The first document that places Antonio in São Paulo is his civil marriage to Ida Pistoso in Belenzinho, on April 12, 1930.


Antonio de Souza
Variations: Antonio de Sousa
Birth Date and Local: December 18, 1909 in Trinta, Guarda, Portugal
Religion: Roman Catholic
Lineage: Son of Guilhermino de Souza (1876) and Francisca Tagalha (Francisca Vagalha, Francisca Tagalia, Francisca Fagalha) (1874); Guilhermino de Souza was son of Augusto de Souza (1849) and Maria Nunes (also written Maria Alves and Maria da Costa Alves); Augusto was son of Joaquim de Souza (1808) and Maria Bernarda; Joaquim was son of Joana de Souza (1775), father unknown; Francisca Tagalha was daughter of João Chantre (c. 1835) and Maria Tagalha.


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