Portugal: Tracing Portuguese family history - where do I start?

[claireandsi]

I am helping my friend and her daughter start out on their family tree and would like to know where to start when it comes to Portuguese records.  Is there any online information?  I really have no idea where to start, so any guidance would be greatly appreciated. 

Thankyou

[Berlin-Bob]

Hi Claireandsi,

The new wiki project at familysearch seems to be a good place to start:
Topic: New resource from Familysearch
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,259450.0.html

On the site index page, click on "browse by Country" (on the right-hand side of the page)
and then "P",  and "Portugal".

there are pages there about
# Church Records
# Census
# Civil Registration
# Emigration and Immigration
# Social Life and Customs

and links to research  tools:
# Portugal Genealogy links on genealogylinks.net
# Portuguese Genealogy - Tracing Your Family Tree & History in Portugal - about.com
# Cyndi's List - Portugal
# Genealogy : Portugal : Selected Internet Resources (Portals to the World, Library of Congress)
# Directory of Parish Records
# Directory of Royal Genealogical Data
# Letter-writing Guide
# Word List

That should give you all a head start

regards,
Bob

[claireandsi]

Thanks so much for that, it all looks incredibly useful and will  hopefully give us a good start.  My friend,s daughter is really enthusiastic about this project - think we might just have created an 11 year old convert to this hobby/obsession/passion of ours