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If you are looking for family history information the Archivo is very well organised and installed in their new building. Records are still being transcribed or copied from church information and there is still some way to go and unfortunately some sets of years are missing. I would say however that research from the original records will require knowledge of the portuguese language as many of these are handwritten 'copperplate' in portuguese.
www.arquivo-madeira.org
Madeira tourism sites are abundant but this one is the official version.
www.madeiratourism.org
This is a site dedicated to St Vincent heritage and has a lot of historic information. It is constantly under development and promises great things for the future.
www.SVGAncestry.com
Tourism information for St Vincent can be found on a number of sites but this one is one of the best.
www.svgtourism.com
TonyOldies is a cracking site that has a wealth of in formation and pictures of historic St Vincent but also up to date reports and latest daily news etc.
www.tonyoldies.homestead.com
Prior to the portuguese inquisition in 1497 many important and influential positions in medicine, science, navigation and other professional pursuits were held by portuguese sephardic jews. This persecution was followed by a general exodus of these jews to many parts of the world especially northern Europe but also to Madeira, the Azores and Brazil. This spread continued over the coming years until they could be found world wide including the USA.
Many family ties in Madeira and in the West Indies in general can be traced to the line of the sephardic jews and the De Paiva name has also been connected to these origins.
The websites found under the following two links tell this story
www.sephardim.com which is owned by Harry Stein.
In the 1800's there was another exodus from Portugal that gave rise to many of the ancestors of todays families with Portuguese origins. Following the demise of the sugar industry wine had become the major industry but in the early 1800's disease had affected the vines on two occasions. Ensuing poverty and the arrival of forced conscription into the army for the prevailng civil wars caused many to flee ending up particularly in Guyana and Trinidad where they spread to other Caribbean islands or direct to these islands. The Portuguese attained a commercial superiority over all the other races in the islands although they were never admitted to the cultural hiararchy.
An article that gives an outline to the Guyana story is www.guyana.org/special/portuguese.html .
The history of the De Paiva name shown elsewhere on this site and the coat of arms in the banner were provided by House of Names a commercial site owned by the Swyrich Corporation. They have been kind enough to allow these to be shown on my site but the copyright is theirs.
Thier site can be found at www.houseofnames.com