The Oliveiro family is the main heritage line of this whole document. The ancestry is Portuguese. Henrique de Oliveira, was a Portuguese merchant who married an Arab lady. He must have fled to the Far East after his marriage given the very strong differences of their religion held by his family. Upon reaching the East, it is probably then that he changed his surname from De Oliveira to Oliveiro

It is assumed that Henrique was born circa 1812. The assumption is based on the average age of 25 years at which males in the Oliveiro family married during this period. It likely, but not certain, that Henrique settled in Malacca, which was then a Portuguese colony. In all likelihood his son Joao moved to Singapore at a later stage of his life. What is certain is that Charles Ferdinand, Henrique's grandson, lived in Singapore.

This chapter was made possible because of my grandfather, Cyril Peter's untiring efforts in starting and maintaining records of the Oliveiro genealogy. The commencement of the records began sometime in the late 50s. He was encouraged by a renowned historian Rev Fr. Manuel Texeira to trace his family heritage. All the data available was collected by my grandfather and he was helped a lot by my uncle, Hugh Joseph Oliveiro.