Twenty years in the archives, before Mnésis ever became a company.

Our history

From a childhood obsession to a research practice.

While others his age had other pastimes, Thiago Bezerra Vianna listened to the stories of ancestors, copied their documents, and kept old photographs, trying to reconstruct the path of those who came before him. The passion became method at the University of Coimbra, in Portugal, where he trained as a historian. Back in Brazil in 2004, he chose to practice history as a researcher: for more than two decades he worked through archives, civil registries and parishes from the north to the south of the country, and in Portugal and Spain, copying, digitizing and indexing the records that today form Mnésis's own archive.

The company itself was born of a friend's request. He wanted Portuguese citizenship but did not know where his ancestor had been born. The search became an investigation; the investigation, a discovery. When the record finally appeared, it was clear that this was more than locating a certificate: it was giving a family back part of its own history. Other families came looking; the favor became a profession.

The name comes from the Greek mnésis, memory, recollection. Today the practice works permanently with more than eighteen nationality and immigration firms, and with families in Brazil and abroad, guided by the same principle as those first visits: every story deserves to be found, understood, and preserved.