Quiché Department, Guatemala Genealogy

Quiche, Guatemala, is a department in the north of the country. It is sometimes mistakenly referred to as 'El Quiche'. Most of the people are in the southern part of the department, and most of the villages and towns are in the highlands of the department.

Record Loss
In the 1970s and 1980s, there was an insurgency in the northern part of Guatemala, including this department. Since many of the insurgents were from Guatemala, they knew of record sources such as Government facilities and churches. So to keep the Government forces and policing agencies from finding out who they were, they burned various records in various places.

The end result is they burned many original vital records at their sources. Some had been filmed and many of those films are now available through the Family History Library, others were taken to other departments, in the case of Quiche some of the church records were taken to Quetzaltenango at times before the insurgents destroyed the rest. Some records that were saved were also those that are now in the National Archives in Guatemala City.

For the FamilySearch Catalog listings of what types of records were filmed, search the catalog for Quiche, Guatemala