Domingues was born on February 19, 1888 in Brava, in Cape Verde, in modest circumstances. She married Jose Manuel Domingues in 1906, with him emigrating to the United States shortly afterwards and her joining him there (specifically in Massachusetts) the next year, specifically in 1907. Domingues did missionary work for the Church of the Nazarene in Africa and her birth place of Cape Verde and also engaged in vigorous street-corner preaching while she lived in both Boston and New Bedford in Massachusetts. Her husband Jose died from cancer in 1950. She lived alone until the age of 107, when she moved into a retirement facility, and also used a wheelchair in her last years. Only one of her children lived past their teenage years–specifically Frank Domingues, who died at age 71 in 1998, predeceasing his mother by four years. After her son Frank's death, Adelina Domingues's condition began to decline and worsen. Adelina Domingues attributed her longevity to eating vegetables and beans on a daily basis and also to abstaining from any form of both alcohol and tobacco for her entire life. She died in Spring Valley, California (in the San Diego area) at 1:30 PM Pacific Daily Time on August 21, 2002 from congestive heart failure at the age of 114.5.