This is a great story. I have read some of the letters. They are well written, and unlike some marriage copies you can actually read them! What I particularly like about them is that it gives us a glimpse of life at the time. It provides us with a life triangle of Guyana, England and Australia  with Madeira at the centre. For Australia, this should be of great interest for Madeirans who settled after WWII. It is perhaps an unknown historical fact for them, that there were Madeiran families, who knew about their Madeiran origins and still had connections to Madeira in 1920's. I also give us insights into what was  then a vigorous and thriving community in the then British Guyana. Today that Madeiran community has pretty well disappeared. Its children like Philip are still around in somewhat of a double Madeiran Diaspora. The letters should be archived and anyone in the future doing research on the Madeiran Diaspora should be able to have access to them. In my opinion they are that valuable. When and if Philip posts them I would invite all list members to read them and let us know if my opinion has any value. Thank you. José Fernandes From: Philip Rodrigues <philrod51@yahoo.ca> To: prt-madeira@rootsweb.com Sent: Friday, May 27, 2011 9:59:00 AM Subject: [PT-MADEIRA] Our journey In this journey that we have embarked on, I am sure we all have moments when we hit a brick-wall and don't have the energy to continue until we can recharge our batteries. Then out of the blue we make a breakthrough in our search and we are re-energized like a re-chargeable battery and we continue our quest for the people and the events that have shaped our life. I would like to share with this list a  breakthrough that I have had in the past month. About seven years ago I placed a word document on a web site I made so that I can share stories and my genealogical finds with family at large. I have had several interesting hits on that site over the years, but none as amazing as I received in the last few weeks. I received an email from Australia from Linda, who tells me that a her children are the great grand children of Maria Rodrigues married Agostino de Freitas : re passport document below. Agostinho de Freitas    Maria de Freitas    Maria Rodrigues    Câmara de Lobos-RAM    Demerara    1888    70    58 It so happens their grandfather José de Freitas is my father's 1st 1/2 cousin and I never knew anything about this part of the family. I am sure my father knew of them but he took his secret to the grave. But the most important thing to come out of this discovery, is the emergence of some 30 letters written by my great aunt Matilde Rodrigues b 1872 São Pedro (she was a nun in Dominica, WI. )  spanning a period of  13 years in which she writes about people and events that I never had any knowledge of. José thinks the letters should be archived and I am toying with the idea of putting them on my site for all to read. my site :  http://www3.sympatico.ca/debrod/ I guess the moral of this story is that we need to use the tools available to us in this day and age in order to further our search. I would be more than happy to help anyone with a web site they might be considering. Thanks for your interest! Philip http://rodriguesfamily.tribalpages.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to PRT-MADEIRA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message