For many years, the Society’s library at St Julian’s School has held an enormous collection of hand-written index cards that record the names and other information, such as dates of birth and death, marriage, and parents, about approximately 5,500 British residents in Lisbon from the middle of the 18th century to after the Second World War. We do not know who was responsible for compiling this information, neither how the index cards ended up in the British Historical Society’s possession. Maybe members with longer memories than those of the present Council can enlighten us?
The information on these cards has now been painstakingly transferred to Excel spreadsheets by our librarian, Dani Monteiro, a considerable labour of love for which we are most grateful.
It appears that most of the original information was obtained from the records of St George’s Church, although some of the information presented predates St George’s. Other sources appear to include the survey of British people in Portugal initiated by the Marquis of Pombal after the 1755 earthquake, records from the Corpo Santo Irish College, and the Committee books of the long-defunct Lisbon Factory.
The Society believes that this is an extremely value resource, both for historians and other writers, as well as for people trying to track down their ancestors. The intention is that this Excel database will be a dynamic record, and, therefore, should you identify corrections or additions that need to be made, please contact us at library@bhsportugal.org.
The information is available alphabetically in the sheets of this Excel spreadsheet, as identified on the bottom tabs:
A-C; D-F: G-J; K-M; N-R; S-U; W-Z.
We are very grateful to our member, Mark Davies, who has prepared a version of the same information and made this available on Google Docs. This is more user-friendly than Excel sheets particularly if you wish to look at the information on your phone.
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