Arturo, Emilie,
See my comments below.
Elvira
> 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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
used to work in a place where it was common to have to delve into people's
genealogy. Some of my co-workers used to tell people that usually
Spanish names had no meaning, that they were just noises to distinguish one from
the other, that Latins in general (meaning Indians) never had family trees nor
did they care about who their ancestors were. I wonder what he would
tell the people whose last name is Moctezuma!
One day I argued the point with some of them and told them that I knew that
our record keeping was better than the English (of which I know something about)
and the response was that Mexicans and Latins had no culture or history!
Mind you, these were peole with advanced degrees!
> 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
went to Coahuila, Durango and a couple of communities on the northern border of
Zacatecas and found the following situation regarding records:
I had a been looking for one of my grandgathers B.C. for over 20
yeras (in fact, he had looked for it himself every time one of his children got
married) but it was never found, not even in the capital. I finally decided to
go to the registro civil in the municipio and look for it myself because Grandpa
had assured me he had been registered. As it turns out, the registro civil used
to keep a box with pieces of the documents that had been torn or detached from
the books. No one had ever looked in this box. I looked and found
not only the copy but also the original page was supposed to be sent to the
registro civil in the capital. The book had never been sent and through usage
had been torn, its pages detached from the original empastado. What the official
did was remove the pages and throw them into this box insted of keeping them in
the book, consequently, nobody could find them. I just got nosy and went
looking and got lucky!
Another situation I ran into was this: In a town close to the
border with Zacatecas, I went with a friend who was looking for a birth
certificate from the 1930s. We found the RC and proceeded to look and
nothing was found. Along comes the old encargado del registro (a gentleman in
his 80+) and out of curiosity asked us what we were looking for. After giving
him the information on he person we were looking for he said something
very interesting; look in the "no pagados".
It turns out that in some places the official will make the record (i don't
know if it is a personal choice or what) but will not put it in the book if the
registration was not paid for. In some localities the registros were done on
papel sellado which were loose sheets of official paper that were later bound in
a book.
Anyway, the record we were looking for was there marked "no pago" but
had never been included in the oficial records. We paid and were told that the
acta would be included in the records. I never went to check but I assume
it was.
A word on the "no pago" documents: the ex-official told us that
the practice was common in small places, including northern Zacatecas where he
was from. I had never heard about this. Has anyone?
We saw births from the 1800 also marked 'no vale" and later saw the
same in the official book (I assume the document had been paid for). There
were not many but a few. I was amazed that they were kept.
> 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.
----------------------------------------------------------I
have relatives from Mazapil and they tell me that sometimes when people were
involved in mining they baptized their children in another place (I have
found this to be true) sometimes returning to their place of origin. I
have some realtives from the early 1800s who were born in Ojocaliente and their
parents went back to Coahuila where they were from, taking the children with
them who were born in Ojocaliente. All their lives they said they were
from Coahuila, even in oficial documents but the records preved that to be
untue. Have you tried contiguous cities or counties?
> 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
---------------------------------------------There was also the tremendous
lack of priests to marry people. In some places in the northern frontier
people saw a priest onece every 20 to 30 years!
and that family name transmittal was not
> very common in the
area at the time.
------------------------------------------------You are right. Other
things were more important at the time. Besides, naming practices were kind of
different at that time and not everybody followed the ones that were
established.
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.
------------------------------------------------I found that if the native
Indians or mestizos were married in their native religion, the Catholic church
considered their children illegitimate but would baptize them.
by Date 
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