By Kimberly Brown, Family Historian
Having just returned from a genealogy internship in Spain, I’d like to share some of my experiences with you and show you how to do genealogy research in the land of Cervantes and Velazquez.
It doesn’t matter what place or time period you are researching, it’s essential to understand and pay attention to jurisdictional divisions when you’re conducting genealogy research. That way, you’ll know where to find the records you need and how to search them.
Where will you find the records you need? And what jurisdiction do they fall under? That depends upon what entity—church, government, or otherwise—created the records. For Spain, the main jurisdictions or kinds of genealogical records include:
• Parish records. Ever since the Council of Trent in the 1500s required parish priests to record all vital sacraments—baptism, marriage, and last rites—the Catholic Church has been keeping useful genealogical records. There are also confirmation records kept in the parish, or parroquia. All these records can usually be found locally in the parish; to access them, you’ll have to get the permission of the parish priest (although some parish records have been photographed and are available free online at pilot.familysearch.org).
• Diocesan records. In some dioceses, the parish records have been centralized at the diocesan archive, or Archivo Histórico Diocesano. Even if the parish records haven’t been centralized there, you will still find good resources available at the diocesan level. These include marriage dispensations (permissions granted by the bishop allowing a couple to marry) as well as communion lists.
• Civil registration records. Beginning in 1870, civil registers were created in Spain and births, marriages, and deaths were recorded in government records in addition to church books for the first time. These records, among the richest genealogical records in Spain, can be found at the town’s local registro civil or ayuntamiento.
• Provincial records. In the Archivo Histórico Provincial, you can access the Catastro de Ensenada, the valuable 1791 Spanish census. In addition, notarial records are usually kept in the provincial archive. Notarial records are the wills, contracts, sales, death inventories, marriage contracts, and other records used by Spanish genealogy researchers when parish records are unavailable.
• Municipal records. The Archivo Histórico Municipal is where you can find tax lists and modern censuses; in addition, you can sometimes find copies of the Catastro de Ensenada there.
• National records. Military records are consolidated into the Archivo General Militar in Segovia. National government records have been consolidated into the Archivo Histórico Nacional in Madrid or the Archivo General de la Administración in Alcalá de Henares.
The records available are abundant. All you need is a basic knowledge of how the records were created and where they are kept, and you’re on your way to researching your Spanish genealogy.