from:http://www.rootsweb.com/~rwguide/lesson22.htm#Hispanic
ROOTSWEB'S GUIDE TO TRACING FAMILY TREES
Hispanic research varies in different countries
depending on the type of records created and the
history of the locality. Access to various records
also will vary. Most people of Spanish heritage have
at least two surnames; some more. This is the case for
those whose family names consist of compound surnames
as in Hurtado de Mendoza, which has come to be
considered one surname. A child was given his father's
first surname and a second surname acquired from his
mother's first surname. Women in Hispanic societies do
not take their husbands surnames as their own. This
simplifies genealogical research � sometimes. There
also is no usage of the mother's first surname as a
given or second name for her children as occurs in
Anglo-Saxon or other European cultures. If you
encounter an ancestor with the surnames of Diaz
Rodriguez, it may be safely assumed that the father
was surnamed Diaz and the mother Rodriguez, not vice
versa.
This dual system of surnames works well and is easy
to follow and trace. However, from about the middle of
the 19th century back, the system is fuzzy in some
localities and becomes somewhat complicated. The main
cause of the problem is that women used one set of
surnames and the men another. In early times, Spanish
surnames were interchangeable and sometimes the
mother's surname was placed first instead of second.
It has been only within the last 150 to 200 years that
the spelling of Hispanic surnames has become
standardized. So it is not surprising to find early
records with surnames spelled several ways.
"It is not always possible to trace every Hispanic
ancestor across the border or through the extant
records, but it is certainly just as easy, if not more
so, than trying to trace an Anglo-European, African,
or Asian pedigree," according to Lyman D. Platt.
Platt, a fellow of the Utah Genealogical Association
and president of the Institute of Genealogy and
History for Latin America and author of major portions
of Hispanic American Genealogical Sourcebook.
Some records specific to Hispanics include: notarial
records, hidalguias and heraldry, Inquisition records,
records of the religious orders and records of the
secular church.
Information about immigrants who entered the United
States through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and
California are found in a wide variety of collections.
From the period of 1906 to 1953 approximately 1.5
million individual records were created at the
Immigration and Naturalization office in El Paso,
Texas, with about 600,000 of these being entries made
prior to July 1, 1924. These documents relate to
aliens immigrating to the U.S. who were granted
border-crossing privileges all along the border of
Mexico from California to Texas. They also include
records of some U.S. citizens living in Mexico.
Spaniards or Mexicans entering the United States by
ship between 1820 and 1903 usually did so through
Galveston, Texas, New Orleans, San Diego or San
Francisco. Immigrants were required to state their
name, age, sex, country of birth, where they intended
to settle, and their occupation. Lists of the names of
those entering as passengers were furnished to the
customs officials by the ship's captain.
Tracing your Hispanic roots may involve research in
old American records as well as Mexican, and
eventually lead you to Spain, where genealogical
records are among the oldest and best in the world.
Since most Spanish and Mexican immigrants were Roman
Catholics, church records are among the most valuable
for genealogists. It is usually best to start your
search in church records rather than civil records
because the children of many newly arrived immigrants
to the U.S. were usually born at home with the
assistance of a midwife or neighbor and civil birth
records may not be recorded. However, infants were
usually baptized shortly after birth and the baptism
record will have the same information as a birth
certificate.
Marriage and death records also will be found in
Catholic church records. In early Mexico the
missionary priests kept separate parish registers for
Spaniards, Indian, mestizos and mulattoes. The church
records in each register will vary in content, so be
sure to check all of them for your family's names.
Some parish registers start as early as 1524, but most
begin in the early 1600s.
One problem researchers encounter in Mexican church
registers is the family surname. Sometimes both men
and women took the surname of the father, as is the
current custom. However, sometimes they took the
surname of the mother, or even of a grandmother. Quite
often you will find the use of two surnames. This is
often the name of the mother preceded by that of the
father. Many of these double names were used for
several generations and then later dropped or changed.
Access to the Mexican parish registers is fairly easy
as many of them have been microfilmed by the Family
History Library in Salt Lake City and you can borrow
the ones you need via interlibrary loan through a
Family History Center library near you.
Mandatory civil registration in Mexico began in 1859.
These records are in the office of the civil registrar
in each separate municipality. Many early records are
in the central depositories in the state capital, and
each state has its own archives.
Church records are the primary source for
genealogical research in Spain also. Catholic
registers go back to about 1650 in most cases � some
much earlier. The Family History Library has been
microfilming various diocesan archives in Spain, so
consult this library's catalog for details.
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