WPA Life Histories from New Mexico

The Library of Congress has a great website that contains New Mexican life histories recorded by the WPA writer's project. Click on this link to find over 200 stories.

Here's some more information from the website about the WPA Project:

These titles are mostly first-person accounts of life in New Mexico collected during the Great Depression. The WPA project categories include: EARLY SETTLERS, OLD TIMER STORIES, PIONEER STORIES and PIONEERS OF NEW MEXICO.

Subjects include: LOCAL HISTORY, including Civil War, Indian wars/campaigns, outlaws, land grants, architecture, roads, trails, wagon trains, prominent citizens and schools; IMMIGRATION/ETHNICITY, including Hispanic (Mexican) dress, outlook/attitudes, Indians (Comanche, Navajo, Apache) raids, trade, houses, captivity narratives, travel accounts and westward journeys; INDUSTRY/OCCUPATIONS, including ranchers, cowboys, prospector mining, buried-treasure lore, tradesmen and merchants, teachers, soldiers; and RELIGION, including Catholicsm, missions, relics.

Places mentioned include Lincoln Co., NM, Chaves Co., NM, Durango, CO, and Farmington, NM. Famous people mentioned include Kit Carson, Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid, Geronimo and the writer Eugene Manlov Rhodes.

Interviews were conducted by project workers E. V. Batchler, Lorin W. Brown, James A. Burns, Marie Carter, Genevieve Chapin, Edith Crawford, W. M. Emery, Muriel Haskell, Carrie L. Hodges, Everet Houston, Joyce Hunter, Mildred Jordan, B. W. Kenney, Belle Kilgore, Bright Lynn, Lester Raines, George B. Redfield, B. A. Reuter, R. T. F. Simpson, Janet Smith, J. Vernon Smithson, Simeon Tajada, Frances E. Totty and Clay W. Vaden.

September 15, 2012 NMGS Program

Botts Hall

Albuquerque Special Collection Library

423 Central NE

Albuquerque, NM

(On the corner of Central and Edith) 

Saturday, September 15, 2012

10:30 AM – Noon

 

The Albuquerque Special Collections Library

and

The New Mexico Genealogical Society

Present

Ron Solimon

Pueblo Nations and State and Federal Government Policies

1912-2012

 The Territorial government in New Mexico did not know exactly what to do about the Pueblo Indians as they were pastoral rather than nomadic.  They enacted many laws governing these Nations and the State and Federal governments added to the confusion and ignorance after statehood was granted in 1912.  Just how did these laws and statutes affect the daily lives of the Pueblo Nations and how were they rectified?

Ron Solimon current president and CEO of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center located in Albuquerque and sits on the National Tourism Board and was a former Board member of the Laguna Development Corporation.  He has written many articles on Pueblo Indians and is in high demand as a speaker and motivator.  

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.

Using Blogs to Search for your New Mexican relatives

If you have ever read a genealogy blog, you may have noticed that there is often a treasure trove of information to be found. However, blogs seem to be overwhelming. For instance, my own person blog - "The Baca/Douglas Genealogy and Family History Blog" - contains 413 posts! How can you find what you are looking for?

There is actually a couple of easy ways to search a blog.

The first way is to look for a list of labels or categories listed in the blog. Below is an image of my own blog that shows a list of categories. For example, if you are interested in looking for information about the family "Bourguignon", all you would have to do is click on the name "Bourguignon" and the blog would automatically display all the articles that I listed as being in the "Bourguignon" category.

Test out using labels to browse for blog posts by clicking on this link to my blog.

Another way is to use the search engine provided for the blog. Look at the image below:

A blog is just a type of database. It includes a bunch of information that is searchable. A great blog that a search engine works well with is the 1598 New Mexico Blog. Henrietta Martinez Christmas has posted a number of burial, marriage and baptismal extractions from Sandia, Santo Domingo, Pojoaque and many, many other places going back hundreds of years.

You can search by name, place or any other type of information you are looking for. Are you looking for a census? Type in "census" in the search engine and click on the little magnifying glass. Wholla! There you go, you found blog posts about censuses.

Test out this function by clicking on the 1598 New Mexico Blog at this link.

Happy hunting!

Access Ancestry.com for Free at any ABC Library

Access Ancestry.com for FREE at any Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Public Library

Recently, I discovered that ABC Libraries are offering free access to the library version of Ancestry.com. You can use the computers at the library, or bring your own computer and access it through wifi.

Once you are on a computer at one of the libraries, go to the ABC Library website at http://www.cabq.gov/library . Click on the “Genealogy Research Center” link on the left side box under the heading “Research Assistance. On the next page, look at the top right hand corner box that says “Available in the Library”. Click on “Ancestry Library Edition” and begin searching Ancestry.com and downloading the records offered by this site!

Remember, this service is only offered at the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Public Libraries themselves. You must be inside one of their libraries and be able to access their wifi. Speak to your librarian if you have any questions regarding this service!

P.S.: If you discover that this service does not work at any of the ABC libraries, please let me know so that I can post the information on this blog. My email is president@nmgs.org. If you are unable to access Ancestry.com, you may wish to ask your librarian if they can help you access it at your library.

Robert Baca

President, NMGS

August 18, 2012 NMGS Program

Botts Hall

Albuquerque Special Collection Librar

423 Central NE

Albuquerque, NM

(On the corner of Central and Edith)

 Saturday, August 18, 2012

10:30 AM – Noon

The Albuquerque Special Collections Library

and

The New Mexico Genealogical Society

Present

David Snow

Settling New Mexico’s Colonial Landscape

Juan de Oñate's colonists put in place a settlement strategy that reflected European preferences for consuming beef, mutton, and wheat bread.  Expansion of the "Hispano Homeland" of northern New Mexico resulted in the formation (and abandonment) of some 450 plazas and placitas within and adjacent to this region between 1700 and the latter half of the 19th century, as individuals and families pushed the frontier's envelope in search of grass for livestock and irrigable lands necessary for the production of wheat.

David is an historical archaeologist, former staff archaeologist at Museum of NM Lab of Anthropology and former history curator at Palace of the Governors.  He has written numerous articles and books pertaining to New Mexico sites & personalities including, New Mexico’s First Colonists & History and Archaeology of San Felipe Church.

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.

An Updated Martin Serrano Genealogy

An Updated Martín Serrano Genealogy

José Antonio Esquibel has just completed a compilation of the first three generations of the Martín Serrano genealogy. Prefaced by Henrietta Martínez Christmas, the attached PDF includes documentation and digital images of key primary record.

The document "is intended for sharing and for wide distribution for personal, educational and non-commercial use. Descendants of Hernán Martín Serrano are encouraged to use the material below to update their genealogy charts and software databases and to copy the source citations provided in the Endnotes."

Those engaged in New Mexican genealogical research know Hernán Martín Serrano for at least two reasons:
(1) He was a soldier who was among the first Juan de Oñate colonists who came in 1598 to what is now New Mexico.
(2) He is the progenitor of Martinez line from which many of us descend.

Click this link to download your copy of José Antonio Esquibel's compilation.

June 2012 New Mexico Genealogist

The June 2012 New Mexico Genealogist has been sent in the mail. If you are a NMGS member you should be receiving it soon. If you are not a member, you can still join and get the March and June issues soon after joining. The September and December issues will be sent to you when they are published.

To join the New Mexico Genealogical Society, click on this link, print out and complete the form and send it with your membership fees to the address on the form.

This journal is a good one. This is what you will find in this quarter's issue:

* "Esquipula Fresquez: A Private in Company E, New Mexico Cavalry" by Virginia Sanchez. From the article: "On November 20 [1861], twenty-three year old Esquipula Fresquez from El Llano Precinct in Peñasco, enlisted from an average three-month term in the New Mexico First Militia Infantry Regiment under Lt. Colonel Diego Archuleta and Captain Gabriel Vigil." The article includes copies of the muster roll cards for this soldier and a list of descendants going back four generations.

* "Francisco Martin - Civil War Soldier: When a Pension Application tells a Family Story" by Nancy Anderson and Patricia Sanchez Rau. From the article: "Francisco Martin, also known as Francisco Martinez, as born on February 20, 1840, in Taos, New Mexico, the son of Jose Dolores Martin and Teodora Candelaria. Not much is known about his ealy life, but at some point before 1862, the family moved to Las Animas County, Colorado." The article includes a transcription of a Pension Investigation. The outcome of that application has a "surprise twist" at the end.

* "Richard Yeaman (1834-1875), His Life and Travels" by William A. Quiqley (aGGNephew). This is a story of a Canadian family that joined the LDS church, moved to Illinois and were part of the forced exodus from Nauvoo. By 1860, Richard Yeaman went to California and became a miner. Later, he joined the Union Army and became part of the California Column that came to New Mexico.

* "Maria Josefa Maese: Mescalero Rescate" by John H. Gallegos. From the article: "This research paper will chronicle teh amazing rescue of a Mescalero Apache infant from certain death during a raid on a Native American encampment in the Casas Grandes area of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua in the later part of the 19th century." The article includes an oral history and a genealogy.

* "The Continuing Saga of Jose Mateo Sandoval" by Nancy Anderson. This is a continuation of an article that Nancy wrote for the March 20102 New Mexico Genealogist. This article includes a listing of descendants and other information on 6 of the children mentioned in the March 2012 article.