Researching a place

["Natalie" <nc_coleman@...>]

Wow! The messages have been amazing the past few days. Thanks to all 
who have shared their insights regarding research.
(Confession: I am really bummed - I was writing this message, and had 
written quite a bit, then accidentally hit the wrong key, and lost 
the entire message. Now I am going to try to reconstruct, and hope I 
don't leave anything out.)
One of the things stressed by Dr. George Ryskamp at the recent 
Hispanic Family History Symposium held at the National Archives in 
Washington, DC, was the importance of knowing/understanding the 
locality of your ancestors. Learn about the geography, community, 
economy, culture, etc. Get to know about the jurisdictional concepts 
for your locality: political, ecclisiastical, judicial, military, 
etc. He highly recommended the preparation of a written locality 
report.
In another presentation he mentioned the National Archives of Mexico -
 it sounded amazing. Has anyone in this group been there?
BTW, his bibliography was quite extensive.

On another note - regarding lateral research. Last May, while 
reviewing a film from Valparaiso, Zac., on which my father's baptism 
was recorded (and which I had previously extracted), I decided to see 
what other relatives might be listed. So I went through the films 
looking for all the baptism from Astillero (Hacienda del Astillero). 
This film was for 1911-1917. It quickly became evident that there 
were too many to take notes for so I went home and put together a 
form from which to record extracted information. The form looked 
something like this:

Page# _______    Entry# _______
Name ____________________________________
Date of birth (dd-month-year) ___________
Place of birth __________________________
Date of baptism _________________________
Place (of registration) _________________
Name of father __________________________
Name of mother __________________________
Paternal grandfather ____________________
Paternal grandmother ____________________
Maternal grandfather ____________________
Maternal grandmother ____________________

Note: I failed to record the padrinos
Note: I printed 4 forms per page

After extracting the information, I compiled a list of the surnames 
of the children born, listing the names of the fathers under each 
surname. You can see this example of a compilation of surnames in the 
FILES section, under my name, Natalie C. Coleman. 
Extracting the information provides an indication of the community 
for a particular time period.
Thanks again, to all of you for sharing your tips and experiences.
Take care,

Natalie Coleman, in Annandale, VA