Early Life
Furtado was born on December 2, 1978, in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Her Portuguese parents, Maria Manuela and António José Furtado, were both immigrants from the Azores who were born on São Miguel Island and emigrated to Canada in the late 1960s. Nelly was named after Soviet gymnast Nellie Kim. Her siblings are Michael Anthony and Lisa Anne. They were raised Roman Catholic. At age four, she began performing and singing in Portuguese. Furtado's first public performance was when she sang a duet with her mother at a church on Portugal Day. She began playing musical instruments at the age of nine, learning the trombone, ukulele and – in later years – the guitar and keyboards. At the age of 12, she began writing songs, and as a teenager, she performed in a Portuguese marching band. Furtado has acknowledged her family as the source of her strong work ethic; she spent eight summers working as a chambermaid with her mother, along with her brother and sister, who was a housekeeper in Victoria. She has stated that coming from a working-class background has shaped her identity in a positive way.
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