Would birth, baptismal and other vital records for 17th century Mexican residents be kept in Spain?

Question

Hi,

I'm doing my sister-in-law's Mexican family tree but I'm just learning the ropes of Mexican research.  Is it possible that the vital records for 17th-century Mexican residents would have been recorded in Spain? That looks like what I'm seeing. Either that or I'm on the wrong path altogether! Thanks for any guidance  

Answer 1

While there certainly are records of people in Mexico in the Spanish Archives, see the PARES website, such as the Pasajeros a Indias or the Casa de Contratación, sacramental records are kept at the local parishes, with some records, such as records of dispensations, kept at the dioceses in Mexico. It is possible that some of the older records have been transferred to the diocesan archives. There are also records of the Inquisition, I am not sure where these are held as I have never had occasion to use them.

Civil records of births, marriages, and deaths date from the late 1850s long after independence from Spain. These are all kept locally.

Comments

I concur with George. I have traced nearly two dozen of my Mexican lines back to the 1600s. I was able to find those records in the local parish and diocese records of New Spain (Mexico). For me, I relied on local records for almost all of the documents and only needed PARES for Spanish records for a small number.

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Thank you very much. This is very helpful

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Thank you. Maybe I have taken a wrong turn.

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I guess no, All life events were kept at the place they happened. I will help you with information. Open a browser session to https://archivos.gob.mx/guiageneral There go to upper left hand free text field write one word to search, as a keyword, and then click on Buscar. The algorithm is not very efficient and will search all items of the string and not as a complete idea, You might get as results references to bibliographical notes linked to actual documents kept by the Mexican government at the Archivo General de la Nación.  Select one by one, reading the content of the note at the right.