Historical Context
I was intrigued to find a potential suitor in the 16th Century whose lineage encompasses many of the hallmark names that our ancestral family embraced.
It is onward of this time frame that I would like to introduce you to one ‘Joao de Barros’, educated in the household of the Portuguese heir-apparent of the time and a good classical scholar. His chivalrous romance Crónica do Imperador Clarimundo (1520) induced King Manuel I of Portugal to encourage Barros in his idea of writing an epic history of the Portuguese in Asia. But first he wrote several moral, pedagogical, and grammatical works, including Rópica pnefma (1532; “Spiritual Merchandise”), the most important philosophical dialogue of the time in Portugal, and an elementary Portuguese primer-catechism (1539) that became the prototype of all such works.
In terms of the relationship to our family in particular, potentially ‘Joao de Barros’ could be the progenitor of the Pereira lineage into the south pacific as can best be ascertained by the subsequent names of this family. His sons and daughters for the most part, bear the same names as our own ancestors, which draws me to favorably consider that we may be of one and the same genealogical strain. Without precise records indicating otherwise, I am only making assumptions based on educated guess work through countless hours of reading, thus, until such claims are refuted with proof, I feel confident in the belief that ‘Joao de Barros’ may be our ancestor.
My theory is that, the Pereira strain, which holds a less superior rank in the title of our confirmed ancestor, Antonio Pereira Vitorino de Barros, may have been incorporated through matriarchal entitlement of which Antonio, for whatever reasons, initiated within his name, to include for the benefit of posterity.
There is evidence that the ‘de Barros’ family included a marriage into the Pereira dynasty of which there are many uncanny resemblances of first names in our immediate ancestral heritage. This leads me to a theoretical conclusion that indeed, ‘Joao de Barros’, born in 1496, Portugal, is the Patriarch of the South Pacific pedigree of Pereiras.
You can read more of the historical research uncovered going back previous to this age on the page ‘13th to 15th Centuries‘.