CHILDHOOD: Vasco da Gama grew up in a cottage near a church in Sines, Portugal. He was born in 1469, and had four brothers and one sister; Paulo, Joao Sodre, Aires, Teresa, and Pedro da Gama. His father, Estevao da Gama, was a knight back in the 1460's, and his mother, Dona Isabel Sodre, came from English origins.