Re: [ranchos] Re: Bautismos de Hijos Legitimos

[Alberto Duarte <albertodua@...>]

How do you expect Americans to know the history of
another country or group when they know very little
about their own history?  If you don't believe me,
just ask them.  

Emile, you are doing way better than me.  I can only
trace my ancestors back to 1675 in Panuco, Zacatecas.

Alberto Duarte Prieto
Santa Maria, California

--- Emilie Garcia <auntyemfaustus@...> wrote:

> Yes, Arturo,
> 
> It is so frustrating to know that Anglos here don't
> have a clue about our history.  They are amazed when
> I request records for 1640, or mention that I just
> downloaded a census for 1650, for example.  They say
> "They have records in Mexico that go back that
> far?--Who wrote them?"  (they have no clue as to how
> literate and educated the priests and notaries
> public were).  I tell them that I can trace some
> ancestors to 1543 (in Panuco, Zacatecas).  I just
> can't trace all the lines back that far and there
> are such huge gaps sometimes due to the upheavals
> caused in the founding of a nation and opening up of
> frontiers and the passage of time.  I tell them that
> Jerez where my father was born is on the National
> Register of Historical Places in Mexico as a
> well-preserved Spanish Colonial city founded in the
> early 1500s.  They think their 1620 settlements in
> Massachusetts are the oldest in the Americas. I
> don't even think they realize how far back our
> pre-Colombian history goes, how complex and advanced
> the civilization was for the time.  My sister (born
> in Colorado as I was) once was told by her boss at
> work, "Well, Alicia, now that you have adopted this
> country as your own----".  My sister, aware of our
> mother's heritage in New Mexico since the 1500's,
> blew up at him and told him, "My people had been
> here for hundreds of years when your people were
> still back in Ireland digging up potatoes!"  I just
> cannot fathom the arrogance and pride of such
> ignoramuses.  They think their ancestors were the
> only explorers and settlers, etc.
> 
> The folks at the local FHC seem interested when I
> tell them what I find, such as whole families at
> haciendas wiped out at once by the Indians (they
> think such things only happened in their Old West),
> or that a church bell was dedicated in the 1600's
> but had been manufactured in Spain in the 1500's,
> etc.  My husband was amazed when I told him that I
> found a record for a 9 year old Indian boy whose
> god-parents had "bought" him.  I also find that some
> men used their mother's surname and never their
> father's (making it such fun to trace), yet both
> parents are listed on the baptismal record, and of
> course the Indians were given only first names as
> were the Negro slaves in the American South.
> 
> Emilie Garcia
> Port Orchard, WA ----
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: Arturo
> Ramos<mailto:arturo.ramos2@...> 
>   To:
>
ranchos@yahoogroups.com<mailto:ranchos@yahoogroups.com>
> 
>   Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2005 10:10 PM
>   Subject: [ranchos] Re: Bautismos de Hijos
> Legitimos
> 
> 
>   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 
=== message truncated ===



	
		
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