Soalheira

I've been lately immersed in the 19th century church registries of Soalheira, a village in Beira Baixa from where some of my ancestors are from - my greatgrandmother and her mother-in-law. The registries don't differ much from those of Alcains, my other ancestral village - an appalling number of children's deaths, about 80% of the burial registries, and the usual amount of weddings and baptisms, of a few dozen families (there were about 800 to 900 inhabitants at the time).

I've been to Soalheira a few weeks ago; it's another village in the interior, with its 18th century church and lots of houses on sale. The sad reality of Portugal's country, away from the tourist spots. The cemetery is fro the middle 20th century, so couldn't find any of my ancestors there - but the surnames were mostly the same.

How were these people's lives, what were like the owner's of these names from the parish registers? Probably not that different fro our own, even if they didn't leave any records.