​​

WHERE TO FIND THEM

 ​​  

The earliest churches in Nueva España date back to around 1525 when the first church diocese was established. In general, church records were kept in book volumes at each individual parish location.  As populations increased over time, existing parishes had even more record-keeping to do and the number of volumes continued to increase as the church remained active.  Events that were typically recorded were baptisms, confirmations, marriages, marriage dispensations, deaths including some wills and testaments and burials.  While there were other records kept at the church-level, these are the records that are most relevant for initial ancestry research. All of these book volumes have been scanned and made available via the Family Search website.

​

If you click on "VIEW LOCATIONS" below, you will see a map of all of the different parish locations in the Mexican border states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas going back to the 1600's.  By clicking on each location on the map, you will see the time period for which records were kept at that particular church.  By doing this, it is easy to see which churches were the first to "open" in these different areas during the colonial period.  It also stands to reason that this helps to narrow down parish locations by date if you want to perform searches with a specific date range in mind.

 

Once you have established the church location in which you want to search for records, you can click on the "VIEW RECORDS"  button below to see a link to every church that is listed on the map.  Find the church you are looking for, hover over the listing and click on the link.  It will take you to all of the books that have been scanned and are available for viewing, for that church. Find the book volume you are looking for and double-click the "camera" icon on the right and you will see the scanned images.

​

​

 

​​

​​​​

 

USEFUL INFORMATION REGARDING CATHOLIC CHURCH RECORDS

 

Below is a list of things that you will probably encounter as you read through the various records. Of course, it takes some time to get used to reviewing these types of records but once you have seen enough of them, you will begin to recognize some of the patterns without necessarily having to understand all the verbiage in the record.  Keep in mind the following:

​​​​

• Many records are illegible, water-stained, have bled through to the next page, are missing, are not in the right book volume, have torn pages, etc. For these records, it's best to see if there is anything that can be documented and just move on.  Unfortunately, many records have been lost to these types of issues and will be lost forever. 

• Surnames did not change in Spanish or Mexican marriages; a person's surname was typically from the father followed by the mother’s and connected by "de" or "y", meaning "of" or "and". {First name(s), Father's surname,} de {Mother's surname}.  

• Keeping in mind the above point, remember that once a family moved into the U.S., any records generated will sometimes show the wife taking the surname of the husband, as is typically done in the U.S.

• Many baptismal records begin with "Joseph" or "Jose" followed by sometimes up to 2 or 3 additional names, for males (Ex. Jose Luis Mariano).  For females, many of the names start with "Maria" with additional names listed as well.  Note: It is not uncommon to see various records utilize only one of those names, so make sure you always note all of the names associated with an individual. The most comprehensive records tend to be the baptism records.  In other words, you may find different records with different first names for the same person.  

• Prior to 1821, church records were required to contain an individual's “calidad” or race.  This requirement essentially served as a way to classify social status based on bloodlines.  While this was widely practiced, it became less accurate over time.  Consider the fact that it was much easier to track calidad in the 1600’s and 1700’s when there were far fewer people collectively and when their origins were better known.  As populations grew exponentially over time, it became much more difficult to discern calidad to the point where the church scribe, in many cases, used their "best guess" based on physical appearance.   In my research, I have found numerous examples of individuals described as of a certain “calidad” in one type of record and something different in another; in other words, same person written as two different races in two different records.  The only true way to know is to be able to accurately trace back through documentation.  Many different artists in the 1600's used paintings or drawings, such as the one below, to portray the various "castas".   The practice of utilizing calidad in church records came to an end in 1821 with the independence from Spain.  ​​​

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

• ​Church records use a lot of abbreviations and as you go back further in time, prior to 1700, the records become even more abbreviated and difficult to decipher.

• The names of small settlements including towns, villages and ranches/haciendas changed over time.  The point here is to just know that this does happen across records. It is not unusual for a scribe to continue to use the previous name of a settlement, even after an official change was made.  In some cases, the change was not an official one but rather just the name that people in the area gave to it.  Here are a few of the examples that I discovered through trial and error and wish I had known beforehand:

  • Santa Cruz del Padre Herrera-Santa Cruz del Rosario

  • San Felipe el real de Chiguagua-Ciudad Chihuahua

  • Pilar de Conchos-Valle de Zaragosa

  • Santa Cruz de Tapacolmes-Santa Cruz de Rosales

  • San Carlos-Manuel Benavides

  • Also note that many of the small villages, ranches or haciendas that are noted in some of the records may no longer exist today.  ​​​​

​​​

OTHER COMMON OBSTACLES IN REVIEWING CHURCH RECORDS​

​​​​​​​​​​

•  Basic recording mistakes were made from time to time including incorrect dates (usually the month or year), wrong party named in the wrong place on a record or even confused with another relative of one of the parties.  and surnames morphing; write it above

• Interchangeable letters:  Villegas, Billegas;  Cervantes, Servantes;  Juares, Xuares

• Multiple spellings:  Leyva, Leyba, Leiva, Leiba

• Phonetic spellings:  Viescas, Villescas, Armendaris, Almendaris; Padilla, Padia, 

• Shortcuts and abbreviations:  Xtoval (Christoval); Xtrudis (Gertrudis);  Ju (Juan); Manl (Manuel)

• Surnames morphing into new names:  Quintanilla to Quintana, Molinar to Molina, de la Garza to Garza

• Months Abbreviated:  7bre (Sep), 8bre (Oct), 9bre (Nov)

• Search engine in Ancestry doesn’t pull up “accent” or “tilde” sign

• Especially in the 1600’s and early 1700’s, slaves sometimes took on their owners' names which can cause confusion over family lineage.

• While some adoptions were noted, others were not which makes it difficult to track family lineage, as well.

• Typically, in a marriage records, there will be no parents named of one or both of the parties if they are "viudos' or "viudas" (widows).

• ​Families attended different churches for various reasons, so members of one family may be recorded in different volumes at different churches.  For example, an individual's birth record may be recorded in a given church and a sibling recorded in a separate church but that doesn't necessarily mean that there was a family relocation.  It was not unusual for this to happen as events such as baptisms and marriages took place in churches that were not only convenient but available for a service.​​

​​

If you would like to see a much larger list of terminology and language characteristics, click the "GO" button below to see the Family Search website for an extensive overview.​  You will be asked to create a free account but it will be well worth it for this and other features. ​​​​​​​​