The nature of the so-called Chichimecas has varied in time and place. Originally the Spaniards and their Indigenous allies referred to the semi-nomadic people who inhabited the frontier area of Nueva Galicia as Chichimecas. They waged a 40-year-war against them. But two hundred years later, the Spaniards also used the term for the nomadic Coahuiltecan tribes of the northeast.

The Nineteenth Century Dominguez Family of Zacatecas became an American family in Kansas City during the Twentieth Century. From 1862 to 1946, four generations of the family went from the silver mines of Zacatecas to the meat-packing plants of Kansas City. The family worked hard, raised their children, worshipped their God, and served in the military for their adopted country. Take a journey with us in watching their gradual evolution into a patriotic American family, witnessing some of the pitfalls they endured along the way.

Lagos de Moreno, located in the northeast corner of the Mexican state of Jalisco, is an important commercial hub in the central Mexico region. While Aguascalientes lay eighty miles to the northwest, the city of Leon (in Guanajuato) is only forty miles to the east, and Mexico City is 445 miles to the south. Lagos de Moreno represents one of the twenty-four municipios that makes up the Los Altos region of Jalisco, an area that is defined by its socioeconomic and geographic nature and shares a common cultural history.

Follow the fascinating genealogical journey of the Luevano family, from their Basque origins in Spain to their establishment in early Aguascalientes, Mexico. Trace 11 generations through centuries of marriages, migrations, and connections with other prominent colonial families, culminating in their migration to the United States during the Mexican Revolution.

Nearly 700 years ago a group of people founded a city known as Tenochtitlán. These people would set forth great conquests and dominate much of central and southern Mexico. Tenochtitlán would grow to become an engineering marvel, a metropolis of between 200,000-300,000 inhabitants by the 16th century. But what do we call these people? Aztec or Mexica?

Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán served as the Governor of the provinces of Pánuco and Nueva Galicia a decade after Cortés had destroyed the Aztec Empire.  As a conqueror, he succeeded in bringing a vast new territory under the domain of the Spanish Empire.  However, as an administrator, Nuño de Guzmán terrorized both Spaniards and Indigenous people who stood in his way. Eventually, his slave-trading activities brought an end to his reign of terror.

Mexico’s 2020 Population and Housing Census was conducted in March 2020. More than 147,000 interviewers traveled the nearly two million square kilometers of the national territory, visiting all Mexican households to obtain information about the demographic, socioeconomic and cultural characteristics of the people of each state.

At its height in 1519, the Aztec Empire was a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual realm stretching more than 80,000 square miles and ruling over 15 million people. But, for all its strength and breadth, the Aztec Empire failed to conquer several regions that represented “independent enclaves” within their vast dominion. One of those enclaves contained the people then known as the Tlapaneco (now known as Méphaa). Their enclave was known as Yopitzinco.

The saga of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, as recorded in his own narratives, serves as one of the most fascinating chronicles of European exploration in North America and offers one of the earliest and most detailed European perspectives on indigenous life and landscapes in the 16th century.

In the last 130 years, millions of Mexican nationals have crossed the southern border into the United States. The one crucial ingredient linking all these immigrants from every corner of Mexico was their use of the Mexican railway systems. By 1900, Mexico‘s principal railroads were completed and connected to the major American railways lines along the border.

Mesoamerica was filled with hundreds of cultures, all interacting with each other sometimes as foes fighting for power or as allies joining a common goal or beneficial arrangement. In the case of the Aztecs, their biggest ally was the Acolhuas of Texcoco.

For at least 15,000 years, the people of the Americas – for the most part – had been isolated from the entire Old World (which included Europe, Asia and Africa). This meant that many diseases which had regularly plagued the Old World were never experienced by the Native American populations.

Many Yaquis came to Arizona either alone, in small family groups, or as unrelated groups who shared a common heritage. The Yaquis followed the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks establishing the first Yaqui communities in the Tucson area. Many continued to journey north, following the railroad tracks and establishing communities in Marana, Eloy, Sacaton, Phoenix, Yuma.

Writing in El Economista on July 8, 2024, Ricardo Quiroga recently asked the question (translated into English): “What are the challenges, plans and commitments acquired by the incoming federal administration in Mexico, headed by the President-Elect Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, regarding indigenous languages?”[1] Quiroga noted that the new Mexican Government headed by the climate scientist and former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum would serve “a self-identified indigenous population of 25.7 million people” [According to the INEGI 2020 Population and Housing Census]. This population represents 21.5% of the total population in the country.

The following lineage report traces the ancestors of Jose Geronimo Ruvalcaba (1817-1884) who lived in Rincón de Romos, Aguascalientes. As is the case for many inhabitants of Aguascalientes, he was a descendant of the Ruiz de Esparza and Rubalcava families that came to Mexico in the Sixteenth Century. The origins of the González de Rubalcava family will be discussed in greater detail at the end of the report.

Náhuatl is one of the most spoken indigenous languages in the Americas with over 1.7 million speakers and is part of the Uto-Aztecan (UA) family language. A language family that historically spanned from the US state of Idaho down to Northern Costa Rica. This family contains a variety of different languages that all came from a common ancestor thousands of years ago. Over the years various migrations occurred and groups eventually diverged from each other and started to become their own independent culture and language.

Tracing an indigenous family across the generations is challenging, but it is definitely possible when the records you are exploring are indexed. In order to provide your links to the past, you want to find as many direct bloodline ancestors as possible, but it is good to also find the records of collateral ancestors [siblings of your ancestors]. Sometimes, the records of siblings can be useful in assembling your lineage. The baptism of the sibling may be more readable and more detailed than the baptism of your direct ancestor.

Many family history researchers are interested in finding out when their ancestors came from Spain and what part of Spain they came from. For some people, this is the high point of their research journey. It’s not always possible to find that immigrant ancestor you are looking for, but there are resources available to help you find such records, and some of those records can be very detailed and interesting.

Do you have ancestors who settled in Guadalajara in the 1530s or 1540s? Or do you have ancestors that lived in the region of the Cocas and Tecuexes long before there was a place the Spaniards named Guadalajara? Most likely, you have both. We will talk about the foundation and the early evolution of Guadalajara, which today is the second largest city in Mexico.

Doing research on one’s indigenous roots in Guanajuato can be a challenge. In the Eighteenth Century, many Indigenous People simply did not have surnames. Instead, they were likely to have two given names. Other Indigenous People would carry a Spanish surname for a period of time and then discard it in favor of another surname, or none at all.