Descendants of Petronila Garcia Jurado, Matricarch of the Rio Abajo

Yesterday, September 21, 2013, I gave a presentation for the New Mexico Genealogical Society on one of my ancestors, Petronila Garcia Jurado. She was the only daughter of Ramon Garcia Jurado and Juana Antonia de Espindola y de las Heras. She married Juan Antonio Baca, the son of Manuel Baca and Maria de Salazar.

Her life history is interesting. After her husband died, she became part of a months long battle over her husband's estate. I'm not going to give the details - I'll do that when I finally publish the article - but I will tell you that it is fascinating. As part of my presentation, I handed out a list of Petronila's descendants. That list is in the PDF file below.

 

Although I am pretty confident in my research abilities, I warn the reader to only use this information as clues to your own genealogy. Don't copy it wholesale on to your databases, or use it as "proof" for your genealogy. One reason is that I don't include the sources. The second is that this document does not include exact dates, or places.

Keep an eye out for the article. I hope to publish it by next year. It will be co-authored by Patricia Sanchez Rau, who provided me with a translation of a document that I used for the article.

Robert Baca

Census Records are Free at MyHeritage.com Labor Day Weekend, 2013

Census records are free to view at MyHeritage.com, Labor Day weekend (August 30th through September 2nd!) Click on this LINK to check them out.

Maria Hurtado 1725 Will

Maria Hurtado was my dad's eighth great-grandmother, among many other relationships to both of my parents. Henrietta M. Christmas transcribed and published Maria Hurtado's will on her blog:

1598 New Mexico: Maria Hurtado ~ Will 1725: I declare that I was married according to the Rite of our mother, the Catholic Church for a period of forty-six years, more or less to...

The relationship is this: Maria Hurtado, Juana Montoya, Maria Estela Palamino Rendon, Luis Felipe Rivera, Ana Maria Rivera, Jose Francisco Sena, Concepcion Sena, Maria Rita Luna, Juan B. Cabeza de Baca y Luna, Robert Bourguignon Baca, Robert Carlos Baca.

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.

Silva Family reunion in Socorro ... last month.

Here's a link to an El Defensor Chieftain article about a Silva family reunion in Socorro: http://www.dchieftain.com/2013/08/01/family-reunion-celebrates-couple-married-in-1916.

I didn't attend, am not directly related to this family, and didn't know about it until someone posted the link on the NMGS Facebook page, but I thought I would share it with my readers.

By the way, did you know that I wrote an article about one of my Silva ancestors:

Robert J. C. Baca, "From Sabinal to Socorro: Descendants of Maria Clara Lorenza Silva, Born 1794", New Mexico Genealogist, 48 (March 2009), pages 39-43.

If you are interested in my article, you may order it from the NMGS webpage at www.nmgs.org

August 13, 2013 NMGS Program: Using Census Records

August 2013 Program

The Community Room
in the Lower Level of
The Albuquerque Main Library
501 Copper Street
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(on the northwest corner of 5th and Copper)

(Click here to view map.)

Saturday, August 17, 2013
10:30 AM

Please note that our programs are at a new location this year!

The New Mexico Genealogical Society

Presents

Henrietta Martinez Christmas

Independent New Mexico Historian and Genealogist

Using Census Records to Keep and Eye on Your Ancestors

Census records are an invaluable resource for keeping track of your ancestors. A census is a government record that appears every ten years that can help you find details you might otherwise miss in the normal sacramental records or land records. So let's step back in time every ten years and see what you can find that will add details to your family research.

Plus a Bonus -
Getting Ready for the upcoming HGRC Conference in August!!

A well respected and well-known genealogical and historical researcher, Henrietta M. Christmas has researched for over 35 years on a wide variety of subjects specializing in the rio arriba region of New Mexico. A native New Mexican, she descends from eleven soldiers who came to New Mexico with don Juan de Oñate in 1598.

This program is free and open to the public.

Questions? Call (505) 848-1376 or email info@nmgs.org.

Eduarda Yturrietta - a strong New Mexican woman

My cousin Maurine Pool posted this article in her blog:

Torres Family NM Genealogy and History Blog: Young Woman's Dowry Dispute: One woman in 1700s New Mexico named Eduarda Yturrieta represents so many other women’s stories of the time. She married young, was widowed t...

It's about one of our common ancestors who sued her father-in-law over her dowry - and won! This is an unusual, and fascinating story. The second part of the article is at this link:  http://torresfamilyhistorynm.blogspot.com/2011/05/dowry-dispute-addenda.html

Beginning Genealogy Workshop in Santa Fe - Friday, August 9, 2013

Beginning Genealogy Workshop in Santa Fe at the State Records Center and Archives on Friday, August 9, 2013 from 1pm to 4:30pm; presented by the Office of the State Historian.

The State Records Center and Archives is located at

1205 Camino Carlos Rey
Santa Fe, NM 87507  

For more information, contact the State Historian at:

Phone: (505) 476-9782
Fax: (505) 476-7909
E-mail: nm.historian@state.nm.us

Website link

Garments of Faith & Founding of "Modern" Socorro - August 9, 2013

              Lecture: Garments of Faith & Founding of “Modern” Socorro

Nadine Ulibarri-Keller and Robert J.C. Baca

 

The wardrobe for the old San Lorenzo statue in the Polvadera church, which has been amassed for over a century, will be discussed and displayed in an upcoming program sponsored by San Miguel Mission.  Generations of believers have been making pilgrimages to this small church in tribute to El Santo.  With the birth of a new child, the return of a loved one from war or in supplication for strength and blessings during hardship or illness, the faithful have looked to San Lorenzo in thanksgiving.  Their gratitude has been made manifest through these garments and other tokens of love left at the church.  During Holy Week, the San Lorenzo church is a popular destination of many who walk from miles around.

 

Nadine Ulibarri-Keller, a mayordomo at the Polvadera church and who has lived in the village since childhood, will share stories and her experiences in caring for this much loved statue and its accumulated wardrobe.

 

 San Lorenzo is believed to have been born in Spain, at Osca, a town in Aragon near the foot of the Pyrenees. He was one of seven deacons of the Church of ancient Rome serving under Sixtus II.  He became a martyr in 258 AD during the persecution of Valerian where he was condemned to a slow, cruel death tied on top of an iron grill over a slow fire that roasted his flesh little by little.  His feast day is celebrated August 10.

 

A presentation by Robert J.C. Baca, President of the New Mexico Genealogical Society and a native son of Socorro will follow Nadine.  Baca has been researching Socorro genealogy and history over many years.  Although Socorro has a rich history which goes back to the Piro Indian inhabitants of this area and to the Spanish beginning with the 1598 settlers lead by Juan de Onate, modern day Socorro began in 1815 when 70 families from Belen and other areas of New Mexico re-established the community.  With a re-discovered 1818 list of 66 Socorro residents who contributed to a military campaign and other research, Baca re-imagines the Socorro of two centuries ago when Spanish pioneers began their lives anew in this little community.

 

San Lorenzo was first mentioned in church records in 1835.  A license was granted by the bishop of Durango, Mexico for a chapel at Polvadera August 2, 1847.  The land on which this chapel was built was donated by Mr. & Mrs. Luciano Luna.  The church bell, that is housed in its own structure left of the main entrance, is said to be the original bell of the San Acacio Church.

 
  

If you go

 

What:  Lecture: Garments of Faith & Founding of “Modern” Socorro

 

When:  6:30 p.m. Friday, August 9, 2013

 

Where:  San Lorenzo Mission, Polvadera, NM (Exit 156 I-25, right to NM-408, first left to Frontage Road, north to Polvadera)

 How Much:  $20/person. Tickets available at San Miguel Church Office or Gift Shop.                              

                     For more information  call 575-835-2891.

 

  

 

              

            

Who are Juan Antonio Baca's parents?

Who are the parents of Juan Antonio Baca? In a previous post I indicated that the parents of Juan Antonio Baca, husband of Maria Romero and father of Luis Maria Cabeza de Baca, may not be the son of Antonio Baca and Monica de Chavez. Fray Angelico Chavez, in his book "Origins of New Mexico Families", asserted this connection based on a document in the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, CA in which Juan Antonio Baca is shown related to Barbara Baca, the daughter of Antonio Baca and Monica Chavez. However, not everyone one agrees with Chavez's assessment.

In her article "Juan Antonio Baca m. Maria Romero: A Genealogical Proof Standard of", Henrietta Martinez Christmas demonstrates that it is more likely that Juan Antonio Baca was the son of a family from the Rio Arriba (northern New Mexico) rather than the Rio Abajo (southern New Mexico.) She believes that Juan Antonio Baca lived all of his life in La Cienega/ Santa Fe. She shows that all the records for him are in Santa Fe in the Rio Arriba, and that he seems to have a connection to Cristobal Baca and Apolonia Vega y Coca, who Henrietta Christmas theorizes are his parents. The only weakness to her argument is that she does not have access to the Bankcroft document, and therefore cannot definitively discount the document as inaccurate or that Fray Chavez misinterpreted the document.

The importance of figuring out who are Juan Antonio's parents is to figure out once and for all if Juan Antonio's lineage goes directly through the paternal line to the original Cristobal Baca (the other Cristobal Baca's 2nd great grandfather), the progenitor of the Baca family in New Mexico. If Cristobal Baca and Apolonia Vega y Coca are Juan Antonio's parents, than Juan Antonio's line does go directly up the paternal line. If his parents are Antonio Baca and Monica Chavez, it does not. This is because Antonio Baca is the son of Josefa Baca and an unknown father. Antonio took his mother's surname, not his father's.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I hope that one day we can answer this question by using DNA. I am hoping that descendants of Antonio Baca and the younger Cristobal Baca take a Y-DNA test to help us clear up this problem.

Sources:

Fray Angelico Chavez, Origins of New Mexico Families: A Genealogy of the Spanish Colonial Period, Revised Ed. (Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 1992) pp. 144 and 152.

Henrietta M. Christmas, "Juan Antonio Baca m. Maria Romero: A Genealogical Proof Standard of", Herencia, Vol. 13 (January 2005), pp. 26-31.