Gazetteers

A gazetteer is a dictionary of place names. Gazetteers describe towns, villages, churches and states, rivers and mountains, populations, and other geographical features. They usually include only the names of places that existed at the time the gazetteer was published and often their former names. The place names are generally listed in alphabetical order, similar to a dictionary.

Gazetteers may also provide additional information about a town, such as its:
 * Boundaries of civil jurisdiction.
 * Longitude and latitude.
 * Distances and direction from other from cities.
 * Schools, colleges, and universities.
 * Denominations and number of churches.
 * Major manufacturing works, canals, docks, and railroad stations.

You can use a gazetteer to locate the places where your family lived and to determine the civil jurisdictions over those places. For example, the town of Santa Rosa de Viterbo in the state of São Paulo was created in 1910. By searching a gazetteer one can learn that after 1944 this town was named Icaturama.

There may be many places in Brazil with the same or similar names. You will need to use a gazetteer to identify the specific town where your ancestor lived and the jurisdictions of the municipality, district, and state where records about him or her were kept.