Paroquia (parish in English) is the smallest religious (catholic) division, and they are grouped in Vigararias (wich are "invisible" in genealogical terms) that are grouped in Dioceses (or Bispados, Arquidioceses -Braga and Evora- or Patriarcados - this last only in Lisboa).

In the past there were other divisions but Freguesia is almost the same of Paroquia (parish) since the administrative division followed almost the religious division. If this is true for freguesia it is not for the other divisions. Bispado (or dioceses or etc.) does not coincide with either concelho or distrito. For instance, there are paroquias of the Diocese de Evora that are Freguesias of the Distrito de Santarem.

So the main difficulty is to know to what distrito a certain paroquia belongs nowadays in order to determine to what Arquivo Distrital we will ask for records.

Now to igreja. Igreja means church and that's all :). So, in a paroquia (or freguesia) there could be lots of churches or chapels, or only one. The first usually happens in bigger towns and the latter in the smallest. Also, in a town there could be only one paroquia or several, depending on its size (in Lisboa there were about 40, in Evora only 4). As you see the main church of one locality is not the freguesia but is sometimes called the Matriz. To turn it a little more complicated the Matriz sometimes has an invocation saint so it could be called the "Matriz de Nossa Senhora da Assumpção", for instance.

As to the sizes of the localities the easiest part is Cidade, vila and aldeia (from the bigger to the littler). Lugar and povoação are surely littler then a aldeia but their difference is not so clear. I would say that povoação is bigger then the lugar but I'm sure others would say the opposite. Sometimes Povoação is substituted by Povo (people- in literal translation).

Hope this shed some light in this subject

João Cordovil Cardoso
Lisboa - Portugal
[email protected]
www.terravista.pt/guincho/1398