Mexican Church Documents
I am new to the forums. I have some documents from Ancestry that are for my father's family while they stayed for a time in Mexico City. I need some help translating and not sure where to go. Also I need to know whether it's common for the church to update parishioner records after they left the country? Thanks!
Best Answer
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In reference to your question about names: all of them are correct. A person can have a compound given name, along with 2 or more surnames. The surnames list the father first, then that of the mother. So if your father's surname is Smith, and your mother's surname is Jones, your name would be [so-and-so] Smith Jones. With Mexican names, it is extremely common to have Joseph/Jose for sons and Maria for daughters, before the more regularly used name. For example: if a daughter was named Maria Feliciana, it's likely she went by Feliciana or Felicia, not Maria (Catholic veneration of Mary is why that name is so commonly given).
As for "hijo/a legitimo/a," that means that the child was born of 2 married parents. The designation for children born out of wedlock is "hijo/a natural." This can also be applied to a child who has one Catholic parent, and one non-Catholic parent, but is not very common. If a child is "hijo/a natural" then the father is very frequently not named at all. That can be challenging for tracing family lines, but such is the way of Mexican recordkeeping, which was largely governed by Catholic tradition for most of its history.
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You can get a rough translation by using google translate at https://www.google.com/search?q=google+translate&oq=goog&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0l2j69i57j69i60l4.1337j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8.
You will probably need to check with the individual church as to what they do with record of parishioners when they leave. Try seeing if their records are available on-line. Look at the FamilySearch Wiki for Mexico (https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Mexico_Genealogy) and drill down to the church in Mexico City.
Good luck.
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CyndiMessick → Dan F Whitehead
Hey, I'm not sure how to respond to your comment, I can't find a "reply" button. I hope this works. Unfortunately, most of the records are hand-written, and not being able to understand the language at all, I can't run it through a translator myself. Because the handwriting is mostly illegible, I realize that a lot of times, context can help with deciphering the words. About 10 years ago I tried running my grandfather's baptismal record through a translator, and it took me about a week to do it, and never felt like I had it totally right. I've now got about 15 documents, some that are barely notes so I don't have context for what they are. So in all, I'm not really looking to do this as a solo project. I don't know where to reach out for help, and a friend suggested that I check the Family Search community. I thought it would be helpful to find someone who is familiar with the specific types of documents, or possibly genealogy research. For example, we can directly translate "hijo legitimo" as legitimate son, right? But it's helpful to know (I ran across accidentally) that it's a designation given when both parents claim the child. Evidently that didn't always happen there? And why do the people have so many names, and which ones are correct??? These are not customary things here in the US, and I need some help understanding the culture, which will help me to understand the documents.
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