Any Tips for Searching Passports?

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Dennis Munise

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Sep 7, 2025, 10:41:24 AMSep 7
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I am going back to looking at passports for a few individuals in my tree.  Rather than thumb though by year, I attempted to search for the names on arquivos.azores.gov.pt to find which source document(s) I need to look at.  The problem is that I'm not finding any of the names I'm looking for.

I don't know if it's me doing something wrong or of the search function itself isn't working.  To test I went back to the known passport record of my great grandmother.  She is listed as "Albina Ventura" and is passenger #801 on this record.  My process is:
  1. Go to https://arquivos.azores.gov.pt/details?id=1076970 which is the Registo de passaportes
  2. Click on "Search within this fonds/collections" (right hand panel)
  3. Enter Albina Venture in "All Fields", then hit "Find records"
  4. There are three results returned, none of which are Albina
Am I doing something wrong here?

Thanks in advance!

Cheri Mello

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Sep 7, 2025, 11:31:09 AMSep 7
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I ran both of my great-grandparents and even narrowed the date. It returned my great-grandmother (1901), but not my great-grandfather (1903). I think they are only partially indexed for whatever reason.

When I have to search by hand, I don't look at the names if I know the freguesia. I look at the right hand page for my freguesia then look across to the names to see if it's who I'm looking for. Hope that makes sense.
Cheri Mello
Listowner, Azores-Gen
Researching: São Miguel island: Vila Franca, Ponta Garca, Ribeira Quente, Ribeira das Tainhas, Achada


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Rick Drolet

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Sep 7, 2025, 2:11:14 PMSep 7
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Cheri Mello,

Perhaps this has been answered before, but is there a list of Civil Passports for the Azore islands?  It seems a previous response here was for
Ponta Delgada https://arquivos.azores.gov.pt/details?id=1076970 - what are the is's for passports from Horta and Angra do Heroismo ?

Thanks for the assist!

Cheri Mello

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Sep 7, 2025, 2:43:34 PMSep 7
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Rick,

The site that was previously mentioned seems to be mostly for Sao Miguel island.

The passaportes that exist are on Tombo.pt. Click on the British flag if you need to navigate in English:

Cheri Mello
Listowner, Azores-Gen
Researching: São Miguel island: Vila Franca, Ponta Garca, Ribeira Quente, Ribeira das Tainhas, Achada

Bill Seidler

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Sep 7, 2025, 3:18:01 PMSep 7
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As far as I know your main option is to search page by page.  Sometimes you can get lucky with the arquivos site you mentioned.  I have more success when I find a ship manifest on Ancestry.com or Familysearch.org to get a departure date.  The passaporte is often within a few days (but up to a few months) before the departure date.  Even then I sometimes never find it.

The São Jorge Genealogical Society at https://saojorgegenealogy.org/  made an index but only for Horta and Angra and for just a few years as follows:

             Horta: 1836-1908

             Angra: 1832-1839; 1860-1869

Bill Seidler

Rick Drolet

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Sep 7, 2025, 4:36:43 PMSep 7
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Thanks Cheri & Bill.
I have worked with the the passports exclusively from https://tombo.pt/d/acores , and have found the language extensions of tombo.pt invaluable!

But it appears that archives such as https://arquivos.azores.gov.pt/details?id=1076970 provides a searchable database indexed to the passenger and the parents. 

What I was hoping for is the same/similar from https://arquivos.azores.gov.pt/ . 

I found what may be the base for Civil documents for Ponta Delgada at Governo Civil do Distrito de Ponta Delgada - Direcção Regional da Cultura dos Açores - Archeevo (details?id=1076961). I am sure the info is there, but w/o language abilities, it's difficult to find.


Cheri Mello

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Sep 7, 2025, 4:48:57 PMSep 7
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That Archeevo site is kind of like their library catalog. It seems to be a work in progress. For how long, no one knows.
Cheri Mello
Listowner, Azores-Gen
Researching: São Miguel island: Vila Franca, Ponta Garca, Ribeira Quente, Ribeira das Tainhas, Achada

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