Portuguese Fraternal Societies

By Cheri Mello (GFS CheriM) and Kathy (WonderHand)

The Portuguese started these societies to protect widows and orphans as well as for cultural activities. These societies, such as UPEC (Uniao Portuguese do Estado da California), IDES (Irmandade do Divino Espirto Santo), SES (Sociedade do Espirto Santo) among others, keep membership and death rosters. These rosters can be a valuable source of information. They could give the town your ancestor was from, as well as their CORRECT Portuguese name. Many of our ancestors belong to more than one. Those who were interested in keeping their heritage would join. To access these records, you need to write to the society that your ancestor belonged to. In CA, most of the records were filmed. Your local FHC has them. Look under: Portuguese - California, then California - Vital Records then, California - Business records and Commerce then, California - Minorities - Societies then, California - Societies for membership and "Death Claim Registers" for the death.

For the membership rosters, you will need to know approximately the city where your ancestor was living. To use these, you will need to copy down the Council number (you'll need it to use the Death Registers). Some have multiple volumes. You will need to check ALL with your town name. (Large cities, such as Oakland, have more than 1 volume). Also, if the membership rosters were rewritten, some of the information may have changed. For example, if your ancestor was single when he joined, his beneficiary maybe a parent or sibling. If the roster was recopied, they may list him as married and his wife or children as beneficiaries.

If your ancestor still belonged to the society when he died, you will find him in the Death Registers. Not all of our ancestors belonged for life. A few may have joined only for months.

WonderHand/Kathy has had experience with these. I have invited her to tell us her experiences about them. Kathy, take it away...

My own experience with this type of record is limited to the UPEC records of California. I searched LDS film No. 1577856. It has many different councils listed there and I found one great grandfather in those records. It listed his name, age, single or married, occupation, current city of residence, place of origin (usually only the island, but sometimes the village too ), and their beneficiary (usually spouse, parent, or children). Unfortunately for me, the council I wanted for two of my great grandfathers was missing from this film. It was, however, at the UPEC office so I wrote to them in San Leandro. They were very helpful in sending me copies of the records I wanted and I was able to look at the records myself when I visited their office. I also searched the LDS film No. 1577852, which includes the Death Claims Register for the UPEC of California, 1916-1937. This typically gives more death related info -- their date of death, beneficiary, info about their insurance amounts, etc., and reason for death.

Sources: The author's own experience with the records.

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