H. D. Cerqueira de Souza's Recent Relatives

FAMILY TREE » RECENT RELATIVES

This page provides some information about my recent relatives: those who are closer to me in time, even if some of them lived some five hundred years ago (or so). They are my personal ancestors as well as my family's ancestors. It's a shared ancestry, one should say. Even my grandparents (on my mother's side) have dozens of descendants living today (without mentioning those who are remotely related to them). Families grow bigger by the day, and each of its members rightly deserves the same amount of attention and dignity. We all inherit an equal amount of our forefathers. One can also argue that the fascination of man with his ancestry is a way of being part of something bigger than ourselves. Or maybe it's just pure vanity.

DOM FRANCISCO DE ALMEIDA, from the Council of HM King John II of Portugal and Viceroy of India, is here because he might have been my great grandfather, although he was a brother to one of my great grandmothers (on my mother's side) which makes him my great uncle, and as a tribute of my immense admiration for him. Together with Dom Afonso de Albuquerque he was probably one the two most prominent statesmen of his time, excelling above all others in vision, military genius and patriotism.