"We are pleased to announce the launch of new online services that will help Mexicans and the estimated 34 million Mexican Americans* research their family history.
"More than 220 million searchable historical records from Mexico, including new birth, marriage, and death records dating back to the 1500s are now available on the Ancestry site, many of them important historical records never before available online."
For each Mexican state, there is a separate Ancestry database for:
* Catholic Church Records - most of these are not indexed, but can be browsed by town and parish, with the records obtained from FamilySearch images.
* Civil Registration - Births - these are indexed, and can be browsed, with the images obtained from the archives of each state.
* Civil Registration - Deaths - these are indexed, and can be browsed, with the images obtained from the archives of each state.
* Civil Registration - Marriages - these are indexed, and can be browsed, with the images obtained from the archives of each state.
Ancestry.com has made these records (and selected other databases) available for FREE from 28 October to 2 November 2015 - see http://www.ancestry.com/cs/newmexicanrecords2015?o_xid=57458&o_lid=57458&o_sch=Social.
As many researchers know, FamilySearch has similar record collections for each Mexican state, with separate databases for:
* Catholic Church Records - most of these are indexed, and can be browsed.
* Civil Registration - most of these are not indexed, but can be browsed by town and parish.
See the list of Mexico record collections on FamilySearch by using the filter for Mexico at https://familysearch.org/search/collection/list/?page=1®ion=MEXICO.
The record counts on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch are different for each database, but that may be because the indexed records or images are counted differently.
I was told by several of my society colleagues today that the FamilySearch records are not complete - some towns or parishes are missing or do not cover all years. Since Ancestry.com obtained the church records from FamilySearch, that caveat also applies to the Ancestry.com databases.
All in all, this is a significant addition to Ancestry.com, and especially the indexing of the Civil Registration records. However, most of the Catholic Church records on Ancestry are not indexed, but they are on FamilySearch. A wise researcher will use both sets of records available.
The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/10/ancestry-mexico-launches-with-over-220.html
Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver
Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment