Finding your Portuguese ancestors

First, find the freguesia, concelho and distrito

Portuguese records are kept parish by parish. You need three names: the freguesia (parish), the concelho (municipality) it belongs to, and the distrito (district). The parish tells you which register to open; the district tells you which archive holds it.

Write down every place name you find, then check it on the district archive's website. These sites list their parish registers concelho by concelho, then parish by parish: see the list for the Leiria district for an example. The Évora district archive suggests collecting the names, the birthplace (concelho and freguesia) and the approximate birth date of your older relatives before you start.

Parish boundaries have changed. Many parishes were merged in 2013 (Law 11-A/2013). A law of 13 March 2025 (Law 25-A/2025) restored a number of them, in force from October 2025. The tax authority publishes a table matching the abolished and restored parishes. The official record of today's boundaries is the Direção-Geral do Território's administrative map (CAOP). For older names, the FamilySearch Research Wiki lists historical gazetteers such as Pinho Leal's Portugal antigo e moderno (from 1873); gazetteers often give former names.

Azores and Madeira. In the Azores you need the island and the parish: each island has one or more concelhos. The original registers are in the regional archives of Ponta Delgada (São Miguel), Angra do Heroísmo (Terceira) and Horta (Faial). Madeira's are at the Madeira regional archive (ABM).

Parish registers (registos paroquiais), 1563 to 1911

Keeping baptisms and marriages in a dedicated book became compulsory in 1563, under a decree of the Council of Trent, although many parishes had started earlier. Death registers were required from 1614. Until 1911 most people were registered only by the Catholic Church, so the parish book is usually the record you need.

A decree of 9 June 1915 authorised the transfer to public archives of all parish books more than 100 years old. Today parish registers are generally in the district archive (arquivo distrital). Those of the Lisbon district, from the 16th to the late 19th century, are at the national archive, the Torre do Tombo, which has absorbed the Lisbon district archive.

Some books were lost when the registers were handed over to the state.

Civil registration (registo civil) since 1911

Civil registration was optional until the Republic. From 1911 it became compulsory and replaced the registers kept by parish priests. Before 31 March 1911, the civil register created after the Liberal Revolution was used mainly by non-Catholics, a small number of people.

Civil records are kept by the civil registry office (Conservatória do Registo Civil) of each concelho. As a rule:

• under 100 years old: still at the Conservatória;
• over 100 years old: generally transferred to the district archive. For the Lisbon district, civil records from 1911 are at the Torre do Tombo.

District archives are putting early civil registers online. In August 2025 the Leiria district archive published 25,788 images, among them birth and marriage registers of the Conservatória of Nazaré. In October 2025 the Ponta Delgada archive in the Azores published civil registers of the Lagoa, Nordeste, Ponta Delgada and Vila do Porto offices, from 1911.

Read them free on Digitarq and the district archives

Digitarq is the online catalogue of the archives of the Directorate-General for Books, Archives and Libraries (DGLAB). Its home page says you can consult documents and reproductions online free of charge (gratuitamente): more than 8 million records linked to more than 63 million images. Since April 2025 one search covers the whole DGLAB network: 15 district archives, the Torre do Tombo, the Overseas Historical Archive and the Portuguese Centre for Photography.

To browse a parish: open the district archive's website, go to its fonds and collections (Fundos e coleções), then parish registers (Paroquiais). Choose the concelho, then the parish; each parish name opens its record in Digitarq, where its books and their images are listed.

DGLAB publishes the list of all district archives with their websites. Two are run by universities: the Braga district archive (Universidade do Minho) and the Coimbra district archive, part of the Arquivo da Universidade de Coimbra. They have their own search sites.

Azores. The regional government's Registos Paroquiais e de Passaportes dos Açores site has the parish registers from 1541 to 1911 online, more than 900,000 images. Choose the island, then the parish. Some images are of poor quality or incomplete. The originals are in the regional archives of Ponta Delgada, Angra do Heroísmo and Horta, which issue certified copies.

Madeira. The Madeira regional archive (ABM, now under the regional directorate DRABL) has its records in the Archeevo database. Search by the names in the record, or select the parish or Conservatória under Fundo ou coleção and browse the books; a digital copy is shown when one exists. Before about 1860, entries are rarely described one by one: browse the images of each book.

• FamilySearch has free images of many Portuguese parish registers.
• Tombo.pt, an independent site, lists parish registers by district, concelho and parish and links to the archives' images.

Ordering a certidão

Under article 214 of the Civil Registration Code, anyone may ask for a certificate (certidão) of a civil record, with a few exceptions (records of adopted persons, change of sex). As a rule you do not need to show any document, nor to prove you are a descendant.

There are two kinds: the certidão de narrativa, which gives selected details, and the certidão de cópia integral, which transcribes the whole entry with its marginal notes (averbamentos). For family history, ask for the cópia integral.

• Records under 100 years old (Conservatória). A paper birth certificate costs 20 €; an online certificate costs 10 € and can be consulted for 6 months with an access code. Online requests go through the Ministry of Justice's Civil Online service. The Code also allows requests in person or by post at any Conservatória.
• Older records (district archive or Torre do Tombo). The archives issue certificates of parish and civil records. Requests go through their online counter, CRAV, where you must register. Give as many details as you can, such as the reference code of the book if you found it online.

Passports, notarial and military records

Passports (passaportes). Passport registers may give the place of birth. FamilySearch has free images of passport registers and application files, 1800 to 1946, held in district archives throughout Portugal. Such records may give the full name, age, civil status, birthplace, former residence and destination. The Torre do Tombo holds the passports of the Lisbon civil governor (Governo Civil de Lisboa), 1839 to 1984. Passports were sometimes registered by the concelho administration too: the Vale de Cambra municipal archive has a passport register for 1852 to 1861. In Madeira, the civil governor's papers at the ABM include parish officials' certificates for passports, giving the name, age, marital status, destination and birthplace, though irregularly. The Azores site above has its own passport search.

Notarial records (cartórios notariais). Property sales and powers of attorney (procurações), from the 16th to the 19th century, are in the district archives. The Torre do Tombo and the district archives issue certificates of deeds, partitions and leases.

Military recruitment (recenseamento militar). Recruitment lists were drawn up in each concelho by a commission of the town council. The registers are usually in the municipal archive: in Évora, for example, the series runs from 1837.

Where Portuguese emigrants went

Brazil is the largest destination on our map, which shows the figures from each country's official tables: 1,479,545 Portuguese entered Brazil from 1884 to 1958 (IBGE); 546,165 people whose last residence was Portugal were admitted to the United States from 1820 to 2019; 203,387 came to Canada from Portugal from 1955 to 2013. France counted 767,304 Portuguese nationals living there at the 1982 census: a count of people present, not of arrivals. See the map.

Look first for the arrival record in the country where your ancestor landed. Naturalization records and 20th-century passenger lists may give the birthplace or last residence in Portugal.

Writing to the Conservatória or the archive

For a record under 100 years old, write to the Conservatória do Registo Civil of the concelho where the event took place; the Institute of Registries and Notaries (IRN) lists its offices. Ask for a certidão de cópia integral and give the person's names, the date and place, and the parents' names. For an older record, write to the district archive (or the Torre do Tombo for Lisbon) through its online counter, CRAV, giving the parish, the year and, if you found it online, the reference code. Write in Portuguese, and ask how to pay from abroad: a certificate is not free.

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