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This project is to assemble persons or families of Madeira Please add your ancestor or conection to the project. Collaborators, feel free to update the overview, particularly in indexing "notables." The island of Madeira was discovered by a trio of adventurous Portuguese sea captains, João Gonçalves Zarco, Bartolomeu Perestrelo and Tristão Vaz Teixeira, who named the island 'Madeira' for bein...
Madeira ( Ilha da Madeira ) was discovered in 1419 by João Gonçalves Zarco , Tristão Vaz Teixeira , and Bartolomeu Perestrello, three captains in the service of Prince Henry the Navigator . The families of the discoverers began to settle the island about 1420. Later settlers were drawn from the general population of Portugal, together with a dominant class of Genoese merchant families. In the 1...