Arizona Colonial Records

Arizona Wiki Topics

Beginning Research

Guided Research Research Strategies Record Finder

Record Types

Adoption Bible Records Biography Cemeteries Census Church Records Colonial Records Correctional Institutions Court Records Crime & Punishment Directories Emigration & Immigration Genealogies Land & Property Livestock Brands Military Records Naturalization & Citizenship Newspapers Obituaries Online Collections Periodicals Probate Records Schools and Education Records Taxation Vital Records Voter Records Water Records

Arizona Background

Biography Further Reading Gazetteers History Maps Migration

Cultural Groups

African Americans Indigenous Peoples Cultural Groups Swedish American

Local Research Resources

Archives & Libraries Societies Find a FamilySearch center

United States

U.S. Colonial Records

Arizona

Colonial Records

Sources

• Records for Tucson, 1793-1849 available on microfilm at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona and the Magdalena parish archives in Sonora, Mexico (from 1684).
• Parish registers, San José de Tumacácori (near Tubac), 1768-1825 available on microfilm at the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson.
• 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.
• 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).
• Spanish Frontier in the Enlightened Age: Franciscan Beginnings in Sonora and Arizona by Kieran McCarty. (Washington, DC: Academy of American Franciscan History, 1981).
• 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.

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.