After posting, I received an e-mail from Johnathan, which said:
Mr. Baca,
I would just look at the actual entries for both baptisms. The year for one or the other was transcribed incorrectly. Her baptism shows a note that the page was torn.
It has happened before and will happen again....
Certainly, transcriptions can have errors. Therefore, yesterday I went to the Albuquerque Special Collections Library to look at the microfilm of the actual baptismal records. Epitacio's record is fairly clear; Dolores' was not. Below are images from the film (Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, microfilm # 1930433.)
The first image is a close up of page 145 of the baptismal book. On the top of the page, you will find Epitacio's baptismal record. It does not indicate the year on this page, but previous pages show the year 1858 on top. They seem to follow an orderly monthly sequence that would make this record fall in the same year.
The record shows Epitacio was baptized on the "viente y siete dias de mayo", or the 27th of May, and that he was born four days previous. The record says that Epitacio is the "hijo leg. de Valentin Torres y Maria Josefa Ortiz", which translates to mean that he was the legitimate son of Valentin and Josefa. Click on the image below to get a larger view.
Below is the full page view of pages 145 and 146. Click on the image below to get a larger view.
Dolores Torres' baptismal record is very difficult to read. I looked over this one again and again. The dates are obscured to me. It does seem to read, though, that she was the "hija leg." of Valentin Torres and (illegible - although, it does look like it might read "Josefa Ortiz".) Her record is the third from the bottom. Click on the image for a larger view.
A full view of pages 133 and 134 shows a date on p. 134. That date is hard to read though. It appears to be "Ano 18??". 1858, or another date? Click on the image for a larger view.
One thing I noticed when I was researching this question is that the editors of "Bautismos San Miguel de Socorro" decided to put the baptisms in chronological order. Because they did this, they skip through pages of microfilm. For instance, Maria Dolores Torres, baptized 17 May 1858, is on page 133 of the microfilm; while Benito Chavez, baptized on 21 March 1858, is on page 139; and Abraham Lucero, baptized on 22 March 1858, is back on page 133. Although it is possible that the priest skipped pages when writting down the information, it does make me wonder if the records on page 133 were actually written a year before the ones on page 139.
I also looked at census records to see if they could help me. They just seemed to confuse the matter even more.
In a post back in November 2007, I posted an image of the 1900 Census record that showed Epitacio's family. Click on this link to see the image. Family and household # 288 shows Epitacio as being born on May 1859, not May 1858!
Yesterday, I pulled up an image from Ancestry.com of the Manuel Gallegos household in the 1900 Census. Although I'm not 100% sure that this is actually Maria Dolores Torres' family (It has them as Manuel G. and Maria D.), it does appear to be that family. This record shows "Maria D." as having a birth date of March 1856. The record also says that Manuel G. and Maria D. were married 26 years prior, which is about the right amount of time, figuring that the couple in question was married on 21 August 1873.
Click on the image below for a larger view.
Source: 1900 United States Census, Precinct # 1, County of Socorro, Territory of New Mexico, Sheet 10B, Dwelling #244, Family #244, retrived 27 February 2010, www.ancestry.com
More research needs to be done before anything conclusive is determined. Once again, if anyone has anything to add to this discussion, either post a comment on my blog or send me an email at abqbobcat@nmia.com.
Click here to read the first part of this discussion.
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