Need Help finding records in Fresnillo, Zacatecas, Mexico
Greetings to the Latin American Group. I recently joined the group & want to share my struggles in my search for more documentation on some family members. I have a detailed account of my brick wall in hopes someone can help out.
My wall begins with my great paternal grandmother Rosa Gutierrez, born in Fresnillo, Zacatecas, Mexico on August 30, 1864. Her parents are listed as Jose Maria Gutierrez & Mauricia Enriquez in several sources related to her marriage. Her parent’s names are listed as maternal grandparents on her children’s baptismal records as well. I have had success in finding Rosa’s catholic marriage record to my great grandfather Teodoro de la Torre. The sources I have to support their marriage are from Fresnillo, Zacatecas. I have their civil marriage registration, catholic marriage information document & their catholic marriage record. Family knowledge is that Rosa was orphaned at a young age & it is believed that she is an only child. Further family information is that her dad Jose Maria Gutierrez died when she was 1 yr old & her mom died when she was 5. I have searched for Rosa’s baptismal record in indexed & unindexed records, images on Family Search & looked for her civil birth registration but ran into a brick wall. I have not been able to find civil death records or catholic burial records for her parent’s. Another brick wall. Rosa & Teodoro were married at La Purificacion Catholic church in Fresnillo, Zacatecas. The marriage information lists her adopted mom as Carmen Diaz de Rodriguez. I started putting together Carmen Diaz’s family tree in hopes of finding a family connection but have not been able to get far because the records I need to verify relationships are not there. Another brick wall. I have looked for Rosa & her parent’s in Zacatecas, Jalisco & Aquascalientes to no avail. I have gone through all of the witnesses listed in her marriage records in hopes of finding clues, another brick wall. I have found & connected all the padrino’s to her 11 children & cannot find any hints that would lead me to more information on her parents. Another brick wall. When I recently went to Teodoro’s family tree I was encouraged by finding a family member somewhere in the tree married to a Gutierrez. Unfortunately, I quickly came to another brick wall. I have searched different spellings of Enriquez & even searched for the surname Mauricio Enriquez & nothing has come up. Based on Rosa’s birth year I have searched for her parent’s marriage records & their baptismal records in indexed & non indexed records in Family Search in Zacatecas, Jalisco & Aquascalientes. I have even looked at dispensa’s & padrones. One brick wall after another when it comes to finding more information on Rosa’s parent’s, Jose Maria Gutierrez & Mauricia Enriquez. I have searched for them as “others” in Family Search thinking they could have been padrino’s but another brick wall. I do possess a couple of pictures of Rosa when she was in her 50’s & 80’s & to me she looks like she has indigenous blood. I don’t know yet if this insight will help me down the road in my search. I hope someone is able to give me some tools to knock down my brick fortress.
Because the documents I have on Rosa are from Zacatecas I have primarily focused my research in that state. What I am finding when it comes to both the civil & Catholic records is there are records but they are incomplete. My understanding is that there should be 2 Catholic Church records. One set of records taken by the priest of the church & another record that was copied by the diocese. I have not been able to find a complete record that has baptismal or death records for the time frame I am needing. Does one exist somewhere? I have looked for baptismal records prior to 1864 in hopes of finding a record of a sibling of Rosa’s that maybe died when they were young & haven’t found anything. I’m not sure if burials were done at La Purificacion Catholic Church & I’m not sure where to look next for the death records of Jose Maria & Mauricia. On the Fresnillo Civil record side the birth records on Family Search are from 1861-1862 & then jump to 1866-1876. On the civil death records for Fresnillo they go from 1861-1863 to 1866-1870 then 1871. I have looked for Jose Maria & Mauricia in these records & can not find them. I am wanting to find civil death records for 1864-1885. Does anyone know if they exist? Has anyone been successful in reaching out to someone in Zacatecas & getting a record?
I do want to add that another family member has been doing genealogy research for over 20 years & she has run into the same brick walls. She too hasn’t been able to get past Jose Maria & Mauricia. I welcome help & suggestions.
Thank You!
Cynthia Saucedo