Re: Bautismos de Hijos Legitimos

["Arturo Ramos" <arturo.ramos2@...>]

You know that's right Elvira.  I talk to the Nordic people at my 
family history center and they cannot believe that there are even 
records for Mexico in the 1700s let alone records that list maternal 
and paternal names up to the grandparents... along with race/caste, 
etc.  As wrong as the motives may have been for maintaining all of 
this information... knowledge=control and the maintainance of 
information like this was obviously meant to categorize and keep 
people in their place.  Nevertheless this information gives us a 
beautiful window into the lives of our ancestors.

Emilie: Neither my father nor I have been able to locate my 
grandfather's birth certificate... either at the civil registry in 
the town where he was born nor in Gudadalajara.  I think there were a 
lot of records lost just before the revolution. The government in 
Mexico was very weak and then a lot of records were destroyed.  We 
are lucky we have been able to find his baptismal records.

I have a similar issue in my father's lineage much further back.  I 
have a gggg grandfather who was an "expuesto" and whose background I 
cannot confirm.  Even if his adoptive father is his illegitimate 
father, two generations futher back there is an illegimate child's 
birth whose baptismal records do not appear in Mazapil, where he 
claims to have been born.  Somewhat frustrating.

There is a book by Thomas Calvo called la Nueva Galicia en los siglos 
XVI y XVII.  It is a pretty rigorous ethnologic study based on census 
and baptismal registry data that shows that nearly 40% of children 
born in Nueva Galicia at the end of the XVI century were illegitimate 
and that family name transmittal was not very common in the area at 
the time.  I think all of this is indicative of our families being in 
such a challenging frontier that was suffering a massive demographic 
collapse.  Families were being torn apart and survival often required 
people being transient and adaptive.

Have people gotten to this point in time where their genealogies are 
still in the Ranchos area of Nueva Galicia?  I have definitely seen 
more and more illegitimate births as I have gotten closer to this 
time period.



--- In ranchos@yahoogroups.com, "elviraz" <elviraz@e...> wrote:
>
> Victor,
> 
> Yes, you got it right. The state has always made a second copy of 
the records. The originals (when the book closes) get sent to the 
state capital and the second copy is supposed to stay in the 
municipio it came from.
> 
> The registro civil  in Zacatecas City should have the copy of the 
tome in question (let's hope that it survived la Toma de Zactecas).  
I had this problem with records from Durango.  The documents were 
found in the registro civil in the city of Durango. 
> 
> Like someone said before ' thank God the Spanish were compulsive 
record keepers".  They taught the  Mexicans well!
> 
> Elvira
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: v.h.villarreal 
>   To: ranchos@yahoogroups.com 
>   Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 8:36 PM
>   Subject: [ranchos] Re: Bautismos de Hijos Legitimos
> 
> 
>   I'm not sure if it has always been the same but I understand that
>   civil registry records are always made in duplicate; one for the 
local
>   office and a copy for the State archives of the civil registry.  
So
>   even if the local copy was burnt there's a chance that the State's
>   copy survived.  As I said, that is how it is done today but I'm 
not
>   sure if the same rule applied back in 1903.
> 
>   The other question is where were the microfilms made, at the local
>   office or at the state office?
> 
>   Victor
> 
>   --- In ranchos@yahoogroups.com, "Emilie Garcia" 
<auntyemfaustus@h...>
>   wrote:
>   >
>   > Victor, I was just going over the civil registry records I have
>   checked and I haven't found any trace of my father, aunt or
>   grandmother, nor of a marriage record for my grandfather Francisco
>   Olague and grandmother Gorgonia Garcia.  I checked the civil 
registry
>   for Guadalupe, a town not far from Jerez, where my aunt Soledad's 
(my
>   father's only sibling) death certificate says she was born.  
Also, the
>   priest didn't say the records were burned in 1903, but later when 
the
>   Revolucion war came to Jerez.  It seems whoever wanted to destroy
>   records set fire to the church and the civil registry office 
since the
>   list of LDS films has gaps for 1903 in the bautismos of hijos
>   naturales and all other records in the civil registry.  Maybe 
someone
>   there that wanted to hide something took advantage and destroyed 
the
>   "evidence".  I know Hitler destroyed his home town in Austria to
>   prevent people finding proof he had Jewish blood, and a lady at 
the
>   FHC says that some politico in Montreal wanted to do the same 
thing
>   because he was illegitimate.  Why else would only a portion of 
records
>   go missing in both places, the church and the civil registrar?
>   > 
>   > One thing I now know for sure, probably, is that since my 
father was
>   not listed in the book for hijos legitimos for 1903, that he must 
have
>   been listed as an hijo natural.  Since I don't find a marriage 
record
>   for my grandparents, I think they were not married.  My 
grandfather
>   was known to be a very large, tall and intimidating man---"a very 
hard
>   man" someone said.  He mistreated the women in his family, even 
his
>   own mother, and my mother left Colorado when she couldn't stand 
his
>   bullying and interference, and she didn't return to my father 
until
>   after his father had died.  My father just would not stand up to 
his
>   father. (My father was only five feet tall and maybe he knew his
>   father would kill him or something. She said that when she used to
>   spank his other grandchildren (my aunt's boys), my grandfather 
used to
>   come and pinch me and make me cry.  He was mean and dangerous.  I
>   heard from a cousin that someone was out to get him in Mexico, so 
he
>   came to the US during the Revolucion. 
>   > 
>   > I'll keep hacking away and maybe the forces will feel sorry for 
me
>   and give me a clue.
>   > 
>   > Emilie Garcia
>   > Port Orchard, WA --
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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