Ancestry Magazine

My Portuguese Origins off the Coast of the China Sea

The mystery of an adoptee's birth family leads her on a path to solve the questions of her history.

It was November 15th and I had just moved into my new apartment. Checking the mailbox with a bit of optimism, I found a single letter addressed to me from a Bill Leitao in California. Leitao–the name that had haunted me for the past ten years, the name of my birth father. With trembling fingers I dialed the phone number.

"Hello," answered a man with a thick accent.

"Is this Bill Leitao?"

"Yes, who is this?"

"My name is Janet Bernice. I received your letter today saying you are related to Vasco Leitao."

"Oh, yes. I was so surprised to get your letter. Yes, Vasco is my cousin." Bill talked on without taking a breath. He told me the history of the Leitaos–how they were among the first ten Portuguese families to enter China, bringing kerosene and oil. He said Vasco was born in Macau, China and had come to the United States in 1949.

It had been a long journey to this information; a nervous and hesitant one made longer because my insecurity about what I would find prolonged each step of the way. Being adopted into a family at the age of fourteen months in the early 1950s, I had never known anything about my birth family until the mid-80s.

Generally speaking, adoptees often feel a core lack in themselves. Imagine what it would feel like not knowing where you came from; feeling that you don’t belong anywhere, that you don’t look like anyone you know. You may even have a markedly different personality from the people who raised you. I longed for information, not because I wanted to meet my birth family, but because I needed to know my nationality, how I came into being, who I looked like, and potential family health problems I should be aware of. Being the mother of five children, I keenly felt the lack of family history to pass on to my own children.

At the beginning of my search, I was able to access a copy of my adoption papers in which I learned that my birth name was Leitao. Knowing the basics of genealogy, I ordered copies of microfilm through the local public library contain ing San Francisco newspaper information (the city of my birth), specifically birth announcements. The excitement I felt when I read "Born to the wife of Vasco A. Leitao, a daughter, on August 1st" made me jump out of my chair! I was sure that no other Leitaos in that city could have had a daughter born to them on that day.

I held on to that information for some time, wondering what step to take next. Was my father still alive? Who was my mother? If I was born in California, how had I been adopted by a family in Arizona? Nervous about pursuing the personal aspects of the search, I focused on information about adoption laws in California. I learned that a child is generally not adopted outside their birth state unless there were relatives involved. I recalled that we had often visited relatives of my adopted family in the San Francisco area when I was small. Could that just be a coincidence? Having maintained little contact with my adopted family due to alcoholism, etc., I was unable to glean any information from them concerning all that I was discovering.

In 1992 I moved to Salt Lake City and on weekends continued my search at the Family History Library. One day, while speaking with one of the assistants there, a woman approached me. "Excuse me, I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation about searching for your adopted parents. I just helped my adopted daughter complete a search for her parents, and I have some connections with someone in Vital Records in California. If you’d like, I could ask her to look up your records." If I’d like! What an amazing experience to have a complete stranger offer to help me, but perhaps this stranger understood the emotions connected with this kind of search. Within the next few months the information came–my mother’s name was Marjory (significant spelling I thought, not Marjorie) K. McGill. McGill was the last name of the aunt we often visited in the California area when I was a child. And yes, Vasco A. Leitao was named as father.

As the days went by, I struggled with all the possibilities of what my past would reveal. Adoption support groups try to prepare a person to recognize that anything, no matter how unpleasant, could be the truth of conception. I went to a hypnotist to see if I could dredge up any buried memories from my childhood. I even spoke with individuals who knew foreign languages to see if they could identify the background of the name Leitao. It sounded oriental, yet I was blonde and blue-eyed. Many thought it was Portuguese or even Italian.

More time went by; I let the search smolder for a while. In 1997 I was hired to work for a local company and met a woman who was something of a genealogy guru. When I told her about my search, she got quite excited. "If I were you," she said, "I’d go to the library and get them to print off all the addresses for Leitaos in the San Francisco area. I’ll help you compose a simple letter to each of them, and we’ll see what turns up."

Could it be that easy to find my father? No, but I didn’t mind trying a new avenue. I was caught up in my new friend’s enthusiasm. She told me about several letter-writing campaigns of her own that had turned up distant cousins and links to her own past. I figured anything was possible.

The following weekend I did as recommended. The library was able to access the San Francisco phone book via computer database and seven Leitaos came up, five with addresses and zip codes. I wrote: "I am doing genealogy on a relative named Vasco A. Leitao. If you have any information on this person that you would be willing to share, I would be most grateful. I have included a self-addressed stamped envelope for your convenience. Thank you."

In less than a month the responses started to arrive. The first letter was from Bill "Gui" (short for Guilherme) Leitao, the cousin of my father. I also received responses to the other fou r letters. Two responded that they had never heard of a Vasco Leitao, but if I had any information, to please let them know the results of my search. They wished me success. The fourth response came in a manila envelope from San Francisco State University. The professor who answered my query sent me copies of his Leitao genealogy. Unfortunately, his family originated in Brazil, and he was the first of his family to come to the United States in the mid-60s. I was touched by the willingness of these people to divulge family information in an effort to help me in my search.

That fateful letter from Bill opened up the past. He wrote: "Your letter to my brother Manuel was turned over to me for reply. Most of the cousins were under the impression that my brother Manuel is the head of the clan. This is wrong, I am the primo genitor of the Leitao family and the keeper of the genealogical data regarding our very large family. My name is Guilherme Augusto Leitao. In the USA I am known as William August Leitao. The middle initial "A" is used by me, Vasco, and Vasco’s father "Arthur," Uncle Fernando. It is the middle initial of one of our ancestors, "William Augustus Read." William August Read was a civil engineer who was born in Bristol, Wales. He was the enginner [sic] who assisted in the building of Hong Kong harbor and later in building the new harbor in Macau. I have the almost complete genealogical records of Vasco’s ancestry on his paternal side. You may communicate with me…again, I must state that your inquiry came as a very pleasant surprise."

When I called that fateful afternoon in November, my conversation was full of information and excitement. Bill eagerly shared the proud history of the Leitaos, originating with Francisco Filipe Leitao, born in Portugal in 1856. He was a cabin boy on a ship that crossed the Pearl River and came into Hong Kong Harbor. As an adult, Francisco became Chief of the Civil Secretariat and a Knight o f the Order of Christ. His son, Arthur Antonio Read Leitao, born in Shanghai, was one of eleven children. Arthur became paymaster general for Standard Oil. Vasco was born to Arthur and Caridade Maria Dos Remedios in Shanghai on 22 September 1927.

"And how, did you say, are you related to Vasco?" Bill asked.

When I blurted out the truth, Bill was quiet for a moment, but then replied that he was glad to know of me and that I needn’t worry, the Portuguese are a very frank and accepting people.

Still nervous in my uncertainty that this might truly be my family link, I pressed Bill for assurance that this was indeed my father. He responded, "How many Vascos have you come across in your search? I have family history back to the 1700s, and this is the only Vasco on the family tree, let alone any Vasco Leitaos that lived in the United States."

And how did Vasco get to the United States and the San Francisco area? Bill related that when the Communists came into China and threw out all the foreigners in 1949, my father and his brother Paulo took a ship to the California coast where they lived with an aunt. Later, they both attended the University of Santa Clara.

My adopted father had once hinted that my birth father was a poor, uneducated sailor off some ship in San Francisco harbor who had met and married my mother, but had divorced her soon after I was born. "Oh, yes," Bill laughed, "your father was off some ship alright, but he wasn’t a sailor. He arrived in the state suite of a Standard Oil ship. He wasn’t poor or uneducated, in fact, far from it."

Later, Bill spoke of me to his sister Micheala who remembered that Vasco’s parents were very unhappy about his marriage and pressured him to divorce this unknown woman whom he had married. In those days, the marriage was considered beneath his station. Of all the scenarios of my possible birth, this was never one that I had dreamed of! It was like a scene from a fairy tale.

Bill sent me twelve pages of genealogy information, pictures of gravesites, and a picture of the Leita`o Villa on the coast of the China Sea, which sadly, is no longer standing. I even received a picture of my father taken two years before his death in 1994. I have his nose, chin, and very fair complexion.

Today I am pursuing the origins of my mother, Marjory K. McGill. I have written letters to various McGills in the San Francisco area taken from the San Francisco phone book at the Family History Library. I await their reply.

Janet Bernice, a technical writer, describes genealogy as her passionate hobby. She frequently writes for business journals and magazines and is currently working on a novel.