Any advice on record searches in the Philippines Pampanga area?
I'm looking for more information about my great-grandparents. My grandmother was born in the Philippines in the Pampanga province in Arayat. Her father was Maximino/Maximillo Venzon (sometimes indexed as Venaon) and her mother was Antonia (sometimes Antonette) Flores. Any advice on where to look for records or perhaps where to find unindexed records from this area?
Answers
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Hi Kelsie,
Have you already been in the FamilySearch catalog? It's the best online source for Philippines records. There are quite a few collections there, but from quick glances it looks like much of them aren't indexed, so if you know the municipality in Pampanga, your searching will go better.
Most of my research has been in Tarlac and Pangasinan, with a little bit in Manila, and my experience has been pretty good for the generation range you're looking for. Keep at it! If you need help with the Catalog, here is a tutorial video made by FamilySearch:
https://youtu.be/AlX5SxI64wk.
Hope that helps!
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Kelsie, without knowing a better window for years it is hard to say what would be useful to you--however, you may want to see if these Catholic Church records (https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/186995) or these civil records (https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/500489) have anything. The church records are not indexed, while the catalog shows that at least a portion of the civil records are.
Do you now of any siblings your grandmother would have had? Sometimes the person I am looking for is not included in the age gaps but they have a sibling who was. I did some quick looking in the civil records since they are a smaller collection and there are many Venzons recorded, but none an immediate match for the names you gave (but it was a very quick look).
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Hi Kelsie...
Just in case, your primary source suffers from typographical errors, try searching for "Henson" which is a more common Pampanga surname.
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