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Josie:

If I remember correctly, Estaban Valdes Salazar's family in Totatiche 
are relative newcomers since their ancestor only immigrated to the area 
from Spain in the mid-1700s.  There is actually an older Valdes line in 
the area who were originally "Llanos y Valdes" that goes way back... 
one of the first families to settle in Jerez, Zacatecas in the 1500s 
and then a branch moved to what is now Villa Guerrero to resettle the 
main hacienda there after one of the many indigenous uprisings that had 
led it to be abandoned.  That family is very prominent... lots of army 
officers and to date about half of the mayors of Villa Guerrero are 
Valdeses from this line.


>>Hi Arturo! I just now had time to try to catch up on my e-mail (Mickey
Garcia and I were in Monclova, MX  for a few days) and just read the 
above message you sent a few weeks ago.  You mention that you are going 
to try to interview Esteban Valdes Salazar while you are in Mexico 
during December and January.  I am researching the Valdes line but so 
far all I know is that they were in Brownsville, TX in the early 1900s 
and before that they were in Matamoros, Tamps., MX. in the mid 1800s.   
I do not know where they were before they went to Tamaulipas.  If you 
do talk to Mr. Valdes, would you please ask him if any of his Valdes' 
went north to Tamaulipas, and, if so, when and where?  I really 
appreciate it!

Do you have any Zaldivars in your Panuco ancestry? Marge:)

On Nov 7, 2005, at 5:45 PM, Alberto Duarte wrote:

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

Elvira,

Thanks so much for sharing your interesting experiences.

Victor

--- In ranchos@yahoogroups.com, "elviraz" <elviraz@e...> wrote:
>
> 
> Arturo, Emilie, 
> 
>  See my comments below.
> 
> Elvira
> 
> 

I've moved the Census records for Jalisco and Zacatecas from the
Ranchos2 files area to the Ranchos1 links area.

have a look:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ranchos/links/Dr_Platt_sCensusRefe_001131267898/

joseph

ps: I need to add the Aguascalientes pages for this also.

I DID UPLOAD THE FILE OF MY GENEALOGY DIRECT LINE, TO RANCHOS 2 HOPE 
DID NO MISTAKES, THANK YOU.

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 

forgive me. . .I meant to reply the same day but decided to wait and
then promptly forgot.

wow! you make me feel like a god. . .how many can say they've had poety
written for them. I'm sure this will make my wife jealous, I can wait to
tell her!

Thank you Yolanda, what a nice thought and yes I do believe I'm getting
help from my primos, tios, tias, etc.

muchisimas,

joseph


Yolanda Medina-Perez wrote:

A tradition in Mexico is the writing of a CALAVERA for
friends,family, public personalities and politicians. Calaveras are
meant to be funny, they are not meant as eulogies, but are mild
teasing. There's usually some sort of rhyme, and they can be
several lines to several stanzas in length. They can also be poems
of sharp criticism especially towards Los Politicos or Governantes
from Mexico and U.S.

Here goes one for you Joseph, ojala y te guste.

            JOSEPH

ESTABA JOSEPH MUY DE MANANA
COMIENDO PAN Y TOMANDO SU ATOLE.
PLATICABA CON SU AMADA,
CON SU "AMORCITO CORAZON"
SUSPIRABA Y SE QUEJABA
DE SUS PARIENTES, YA EN EL PANTEON.
DONDE ESTARAN? DONDE SE ENCUENTRAN?
A DONDE SE FUERON? QUIEN ME DA CUENTAS?

 Y DE REPENTE, SE ESCUCHA UNA VOZ...
 AQUI ESTOY MI PRIMO, PORQUE ME BUSCABAS?
 PARA QUE SOY BUENO, Y PORQUE ME LLAMABAS.
 AHORA...
 VENGO POR TI, VENGO POR VOS

VAMONOS JUNTITOS, SOLITOS LOS DOS
VAMOS A JALISCO, AGUASCALIENTES Y ZACATECAS
A BUSCAR A TU GENTE QUE ALLA NOS ESPERAN.


MARIA YOLANDA PEREZ

Yahoo! Groups Links

I'm looking for more Poetry and Oral History for my
http://NuestraFamiliaUnida.com podcast. If anyone is interested please
reply to makas@...

joseph

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 the civil registry
for Guadalupe, a town not far from Jerez, where my aunt Soledad's (my
father's only sibling) death certificate says she was born.  Also, the
priest didn't say the records were burned in 1903, but later when the
Revolucion war came to Jerez.  It seems whoever wanted to destroy
records set fire to the church and the civil registry office since the
list of LDS films has gaps for 1903 in the bautismos of hijos
naturales and all other records in the civil registry.  Maybe someone
there that wanted to hide something took advantage and destroyed the
"evidence".  I know Hitler destroyed his home town in Austria to
prevent people finding proof he had Jewish blood, and a lady at the
FHC says that some politico in Montreal wanted to do the same thing
because he was illegitimate.  Why else would only a portion of records
go missing in both places, the church and the civil registrar?
> 
> One thing I now know for sure, probably, is that since my father was
not listed in the book for hijos legitimos for 1903, that he must have
been listed as an hijo natural.  Since I don't find a marriage record
for my grandparents, I think they were not married.  My grandfather
was known to be a very large, tall and intimidating man---"a very hard
man" someone said.  He mistreated the women in his family, even his
own mother, and my mother left Colorado when she couldn't stand his
bullying and interference, and she didn't return to my father until
after his father had died.  My father just would not stand up to his
father. (My father was only five feet tall and maybe he knew his
father would kill him or something. She said that when she used to