Building your Brazilian family tree can be challenging, with information potentially scattered across many different resources. Our genealogy and family history experts have compiled these tips to help your tree find its leaves.
1. Start with Your Own Family Tree Documents
The easiest way to begin building your Brazilian family tree is to start with your own documents and what you already know. You might know the full names of your parents and maybe the names of your grandparents. If not, a birth certificate can include this important information. By asking your parents or finding their birth certificates, you also have the name of your grandparents.
With this simple research, you have reached the fourth generation of your family! You can use a family tree program or worksheet to start keeping track of what you know.
2. Discuss Your Family Ancestry with Family Members
The next step is simple and involves your family—an incredible source of information.
Get a notebook, a pencil, and an eraser. (Or plan to take good notes on your phone or laptop!) Put on your most comfortable shoes and go looking for information.
- Talk to everyone, direct relatives or not. Many people have the habit of taking notes in journals and notebooks. They could also have photos, if so, remember to check the back for notes!
- Talk to the oldest members of the family first. Film or record the conversations you have with them. Perhaps their current memory is compromised, but their past memory can be very much alive in their minds.
- How about using social tools to your advantage? Make family groups on WhatsApp or create Messenger groups on Facebook.
- Bring all of your family together to work on the family tree. The research can go much faster with more people involved, and your family will enjoy being part of the process.
3. Look for and Use Family Documents to Expand the Branches of your Family Tree
Use what you learned about your family to start digging deeper.
- Try to track down Bibles, personal diaries, letters, and photos. You might be surprised by what valuable and interesting information you find!
- Check online files. Do you need to find your ancestor’s birth certificates? Many files can be ordered or viewed online:
- First, try a simple search on sites such as FamilySearch to see what you can find. They have a large collection of records that are freely available.
- Next, learn about other places where you can find Brazilian civil and church records.
- Look for other civil documents. These documents may include school cards, club cards, identity cards, voter's titles, reservist certificates, and work permits. You might find them while visiting relatives, or you may learn information that can lead you to them. To get these documents from other organizations, you will likely need to present a birth certificate or a marriage certificate.
Keep in mind from the start that a family tree is not made only of names, dates, and places. Photos, family stories, reports, summaries—all this information can be part of a family tree as well.
Are Some Names and Dates Still Missing?
As you learn more about your family, it is normal to find that you are still missing information. That’s OK! Here are some tips that can help when you are stuck.
- First, carefully read every document you’ve been able to find. Many usually have more information than you realized. For example, sometimes close relatives such as uncles and brothers appear as witnesses or godparents.
- Start your search with the women of the family! Brazil certificates may not have the name of the father of the family, but they will never be without the name of the mother.
- Learn more about your family’s names. Brazil baptism and birth records before the 1900s probably have only a child's first names. Also, Portuguese and Spanish families often changed surnames with each generation. To learn more about this, view our article on Brazil Surnames and their Origins.
- Look at in-law genealogy. Did your father's siblings marry? Look at the genealogy of the spouse’s family. It is surprising how our roots intersect. On FamilySearch, you can easily connect to genealogies others have worked on.
- If you have Brazilian Indians or African slaves in your family tree, you may have a harder time searching. Learn more about records for Brazil native races and Brazil slavery and bondage on the FamilySearch wiki.
- Did some of your ancestors leave Brazil and live in another country? Learn about immigration and emigration documents on the FamilySearch wiki.
- If you are having trouble reading records in different languages, the FamilySearch wiki has some very helpful word lists for beginners. It is also a good place to go when you have other questions about Brazil genealogy.
The more you add to your family tree, the more connections you’ll find! Remember to add what you know to FamilySearch as you go. As more and more records are added to FamilySearch collections, you might even learn more with the records FamilySearch matches to your ancestors.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Speak to your family and gather information, then begin to build your family tree through a free Family Tree tool or free template.
- Create the outline of your family tree, starting with yourself, parents, grandparents, and siblings.
- Begin to fill out the leaves on the tree, providing as much detail on each person as possible.
- Share your family tree with our online community and amongst your family to build it further.
- Create a free account through FamilySearch to access our online records and Family Tree tool.
- Add the first four generations of your family, starting with yourself and close relatives.
- FamilySearch automatically attempts to connect any information it has with your deceased relatives, helping your tree to take root!
Continue Building your Brazil Family Tree with FamilySearch
If you haven’t already, consider continuing your family tree building journey with FamilySearch. Our free online Family Tree allows users to build out their Brazil family tree alongside a community of like-minded enthusiasts and experts. Our community tree also offers the unique experience of making connections with family you may not have known existed!
Find Out More About Your Family Through Free Activities
Family Search provides a range of activities to help you learn more about your immediate and extended family, including learning about the women in your family, family traditions, the places your family lived, and the heroes of your family. Each of these activities add to build out the rich tapestry that is your family.
Learn About Your Brazilian Surname
Alongside our Family Tree and Activities, you can also use our free Surname Origins tool to learn more about your surname, what it means and where it originates. You can also learn more through our article on Brazilian Surnames and their Origins.
Use the FamilySearch Wiki to Build your Tree Further
At FamilySearch, our teams and volunteers work tirelessly to keep our wikis up to date with the latest information on genealogy across a range of counties and cultures. Our Brazil Genealogy wiki in particular may be useful in helping you to build your Brazil family tree, and may offer up some interesting surprises, too!
Learn More about Your Brazilian Heritage
At FamilySearch, we care about connecting you with your family, and we provide fun discovery experiences and family history services for free. Why? Because we cherish families and believe that connecting generations can improve our lives now and forever. We are a nonprofit organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. To learn more about our beliefs, click here.
