What Tribe Are We From?
One of the most common questions at a family reunion — and one of the hardest to answer. Most colonial church records note “Yndio” or “mestizo” but rarely the specific group. How to read the records, and the region, for the fullest answer available.
Colonial Mexico Death Records
Colonial death records rarely name a disease — they name a symptom, or nothing at all. “Cruz alta,” “cruz baja” and “de limosna” reveal a family’s standing; burial “vajo del coro” reveals its rank. Reading what these brief entries actually tell us about life and death in northern Mexico.
The Evolution of Spanish Surnames in Colonial Mexico
Having reviewed thousands of colonial records, I have watched surnames from Europe shift and morph over centuries. Illiteracy, inconsistent scribes and topographic naming all played a part — and a changed spelling may be the very reason a branch of your family tree has stalled.
Colonial Mexico and the Encomienda
After the conquest came the harder question: what next? The encomienda was the Crown’s answer — a system of forced native labor defended as something other than slavery. For Chihuahua researchers, the 1657 Parral encomendero lists are also a founding roster of the region’s families.
10 Tips to Streamline Your Mexican Ancestry Research
The abundance of records online is both good news and bad news — the volume can become a barrier to ever starting. Ten organizational habits, from choosing tree software and building a research spreadsheet to reading the margins and backing up your data.
Tracing Your Mexican Ancestry through Presidio del Norte
Church baptism, marriage and burial records often noted whether a man was a soldado — and which presidio he served. Those notations are powerful research leads. A look at the founding and seven-year relocation of Presidio del Norte, and why it scattered Chihuahua parish records.
Tracing Your Mexican Ancestry through Ojinaga, Mexico
For families with roots in northern Chihuahua, the road to the United States usually ran through Ojinaga — La Junta de los Rios, a desert oasis settled long before Cabeza de Vaca passed through in 1534. A close look at the three Jesús Nazareno record volumes, including the 2,173-page volume that was never indexed.
Tenochtitlán-A Jewel in the New World
Before Cortés crossed the causeway in November 1519, Tenochtitlán was a city of 200,000 built on a lake — temples, canals, chinampas, and a marketplace drawing 60,000 people a day. For anyone with Mexican ancestry, this meeting is where a large part of the story begins.