Mexico, Baja California and Baja California Sur, Catholic Church Records - FamilySearch Historical Records

Foreign Language Title

México, Baja California y Baja California Sur, registros parroquiales de la Iglesia Católica

Collection Time Period

This collection covers church records from parishes in Baja California and Baja California Sur from the dates 1750 to 1983.

Record History

In 1527 the Roman Catholic Church was established in Mexico with the creation of the Tlaxcala and Mexico dioceses. Parish registers were kept by the priest at the parish level. Parishes were local congregations that may have included smaller villages within their boundaries. A large city may have contained several parishes. The parishes had jurisdiction over both vice parishes (vice parroquias) and chapelries (capillar foraneas). Multiple parishes (parroquias) were under the jurisdiction of a diocese. The highest level of government in the Catholic Church was the archdiocese (arquidiócesis), which was made up of several dioceses. In 1995 the Catholic Church in Mexico had 14 archdioceses; 58 dioceses; 5,345 parishes; and 1,611 chapelries (subparishes). This collection covers the Catholic Church population living in parishes in the states of Baja California and Baja California Sur. The majority of the population of these two states was Roman Catholic, and entries for them are found in parish registers. Only in the late 19th century did other religious groups begin to be established in the area.

Why was this collection created?

Mexican Catholic parish registers were created to record the church sacraments of baptism, confirmation, marriage, and burial.

Record Reliability

Catholic Church parish registers are the primary source for birth, death, and marriage records in Mexico prior to 1859. After 1859 parish records can be used as another source verifying information found in civil registers.

Record Description

Separate books were kept for baptisms, confirmations, marriage information documents, marriages, and burials. The entries were normally made in chronological order. Confirmations were not consistently recorded. In larger parishes a separate book was usually maintained for confirmations, while in smaller parishes the confirmations may have been included with the baptisms. Similarly, marriage information documents may have been included with marriages.

File:Mexico Baja California Catholic Church Records Baptism.jpg

Record Content

Through the years the information found in Mexican Catholic parish registers may vary, however the most common genealogical information found are:

File:Mexico Baja California Catholic Church Records Marriage.jpg

• Date of baptism, confirmation, marriage, and burial
• Event place is the parish unless noted otherwise
• Name of the person being baptized, confirmed, married, or buried and sometimes the names of the parents, spouse, and other relatives
• Age of the person being baptized, confirmed, married, or buried
• Sex of the participants except for witnesses (sex can be inferred from the given name
  File:Mexico Baja California Catholic Church Records Death.jpg
• Place of residence of the family, marriage partners, or the deceased
• Legitimacy of the child in baptismal entries
• Social class of the parents in baptismal entries prior to 1820
• Marital status of the individuals

How to Use the Record

Parish registers are the best Mexican record to identify individuals, parents, and spouses before 1859. After this date, civil authorities began registering vital statistics, and these become equally important. The information in civil sources confirms and supplements the information in church records. For instance, the parish registers may list the godparents while the civil records may list the grandparents. Be sure to search both the parish and civil records after 1860 since some families did not consistently register their children with either of them.

Related Websites

This section of the article is incomplete. You can help FamilySearch Wiki by supplying links to related websites here.

Related Wiki Articles

Mexico Church Records
Mexico Church History

Sources of This Collection

How to Cite Your Sources

Instructions for citing this source can be found at: Cite Your Sources (Source Footnotes)

CID1506640 Please do not erase or change this identification number

To access available information, first log into FamilySearch.