Arizona Colonial Records

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Colonial Records

Online Records

• 1739-1767- Records of the Mission Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi, Jesuit [Santa Cruz County, Arizona]. Partially digitized.
• 1753-1895-Registros parroquiales. Iglesia Católica. Santa María Magdalena (Cajatambo, Lima). Images only.
• 1769-1825- Records of Mission San José de Tumacáori, Franciscan. Partially digitized.
• 1770-1906- Registros parroquiales. Iglesia Católica. San Ignacio (Magdalena, Sonora); Archivo Diocesano de Hermosillo. Images, partially indexed.

History

Franciscans began establishing Spanish missions in northeastern Arizona in 1629. The Jesuits established missions in southeast Pima in 1692. A chain of missions, known as the Pimería Alta, dotted the Arizona-Sonora frontier. Arizona became a part of Mexico in 1810, and became a U.S. territory in 1863.

Records

• 1793-1849- Records for Tucson. Available on microfilm at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona and the Magdalena parish archives in Sonora, Mexico (from 1684).
• 1768-1825- Parish registers, San José de Tumacácori (near Tubac). Available on microfilm at the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson.
• 1797-1817- Filiaciones de Tucson. Archivo General de la Nación (Distrito Federal, México). FHL film 1162420 item 13.

Resources

• Catálogo Archivo Histórico de Estado Sonora, 4 Vols. by Cynthia Radding de Murrieta and María Lourdes Torres Chavéz. (Hermosilla, Mexico: Centro Regional de Noroeste, 1974-7). Holdings of parish archives.
• Catálogo de Archivo de las Parroquia de la Purisima Concepcion de los Alamos, 1685-1900 by Cynthia Radding de Murrieta and María Lourdes Torres Chavéz. (Hermosilla, Mexico: Centro Regional de Noroeste, 1976). These registers are available on microfilm at Arizona State University, Tempe.
• Desert Documentary: The Spanish Years, 1767-1821 by Kieran McCarthy. Tucson: Arizona Historical Society, 1976.
• Documents of Southwestern History: A Guide to the Manuscript Collections of the Arizona Historical Society by Charles C. Colley. (Tucson: Arizona Historical Society, 1972).
• Friars, Soldiers, and Reformers: Hispanic Arizona and the Sonora Mission Frontier, 1767-1856 by John L. Kessell. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1976).
• Hispanic Arizona, 1536-1856 by James E. Officer. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1987.
• History of the Pacific States of North America: Arizona and New Mexico by Hubert Howe Bancroft. 1888. Reprint. Tucson: W.C. Cox, 1974, film 0934827.
• Paths of the Padres Through Sonora: An Illustrated History and Guide to Its Spanish Churches by Paul M. Roca. Tucson: Pioneers' Historical Society, 1967.
• Pioneer Days in Arizona from the Spanish Occupation to Statehood by Frank C. Lockwood. New York: Macmillan & Co., 1932.
• Spain's Arizona patriots in its 1779-1783 war with England : during the American Revolution, study 3 of the Spanish borderlands by Granville W. Hough and N. C. Hough. (Laguna Hills, California : G.W. and N.C. Hough, 1999).
• Seventeenth-Century Spanish Missions of the Western Pueblo Area by Watson Smith. (Tucson: Tucson Corral of the Westerners, 1970). Arizona, New Mexico, and northern Mexico make up the Western Pueblo.
• Spanish Frontier in the Enlightened Age: Franciscan Beginnings in Sonora and Arizona by Kieran McCarty. (Washington, DC: Academy of American Franciscan History, 1981).
• Spanish and Mexican Records of the American Southwest: A Bibliographical Guide to Archive and Manuscript Sources by Henry Putney Beers. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1979. This includes Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico.
• Materials in the National Archives Relating to the Mexican States of Sonora, Sinaloa, and Baja California by John P. Harrison. Washington, DC: The National Archives, 1952
• Sources for Tracing Spanish-American Pedigrees in the Southwestern United States: California and Arizona by Thomas Workman Temple. Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1969, fiche 6039366.

Family History Library (FHL); now called, FamilySearch Library (FSL)