September 21, 2013 NMGS Program

The Auditorium

On the Lower Level of

The Albuquerque Main Library

501 Copper SW

Albuquerque, New Mexico

(on the northwest corner of 5^th and Copper)

Saturday, September 21, 2013

10:30 AM – Noon

The New Mexico Genealogical Society

Presents

Robert J. C. Baca

“Petronila Garcia Jurado:

Matriarch of the Rio Abajo”

 

Genealogy and history can sometimes be messy; and the most interesting stories are the messiest. Petronila Garcia Jurado was a daughter of a prominent family which came to New Mexico after the Pueblo Revolt to re-establish the Spanish kingdom. She married into the old Baca clan, and began raising a family. After her husband’s death, she had to fight her in-laws over her children’s inheritance. Later, she had another child who carried the Baca name - two years after the death of her husband Juan Antonio Baca.

Using a Spanish document recently translated by genealogist Patricia Sanchez Rau and filling in the details with other research, Robert Baca paints the portrait of a complex and daring woman. He follows her family through the Rio Abajo, or the lower river, district of New Mexico. He tells the story of the Baca, Torres and Garcia Jurado families of Belen and Socorro.

Robert J.C. Baca is the president of the New Mexico Genealogical Society. He has been researching his Rio Abajo roots for over a dozen years. He has presented for the New Mexico Genealogical Society, the Historical Society of New Mexico, the Hispanic Genealogical Research Center of New Mexico (presented on his behalf in his absence), and other organizations. He and his wife Nancy reside in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

For more information about our programs, check out the New Mexico Genealogical Society’s website at www.nmgs.org.

This program is free and open to the public.