Guatemala Quick Start Guide

Guatemala Quick Start Guide

Guatemala: Ancestor's birth, marriage, or death location unknown
FamilySearch Indexed Records: Try searching in the indexed records for the name of the ancestor if they were born before 1900. Limit your results to the country of Guatemala and the name of the department if known. If no results, the patron will have to find more information from home sources or by asking family members.

Contact family members: If they do not have even a minimal of information AND have no idea of where and when to look, encourage them to contact family members who might have that information. This could be older aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.

Guatemala: Ancestor's birth, marriage or death location and names of parents, children, or spouse are known
FamilySearch Indexed records:Try searching first in indexed records. Try a variety of searches with ancestor’s name, or with parents’ names, or just by parents’ surnames AND using the option to limit locality by country Guatemala and under event use ANY and the name of the department in Guatemala.

FamilySearch Browse Images: If no results from previous search for the ancestor or any siblings, you will have to browse images for the locality. Civil Registration began in 1877 in most of the municipalities of Guatemala. Some collections have indexes, search the indexes first. Catholic Church records are excellent sources for accurate information on names, dates, and places of births, marriages, and deaths. If you can find the ancestor in both record types, that is best as you will get more information to advance the pedigree.

FamilySearch Catalog: Not all records for Guatemala are online, be sure to check the catalog before giving up on finding the records.

Research strategies
If you don't know the names of the parents, but you know the name of the spouse and/or the names of some of his children, begin with a marriage search (if they married in Guatemala and you know the place). Or, begin with a search for the birth/baptism record for one of their children (if you have an approximate birth date and place).

Finding a locality

 * Google
 * Wikipedia (Spanish version works the best
 * Try a keyword search in the FamilySearch Catalog for Guatemala Gazetteers.

Online resources
For other online resources please review the Wiki article Hispanic Genealogy Resources Online.

Return to the Guatemala page