Quiché Department, Guatemala Genealogy

Guide to Department of Quiché ancestry, family history and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, church records, parish registers, and civil registration.

History

 * During the ten years after the fall of Zaculeu, the Spaniards tried to invade the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes to conquer the towns of the Chuj and Q'anjob'al peoples and to look for gold, silver and other riches; however, the remoteness and difficulty of the terrain prevented its conquest from being successful until it was finally completed in 1530.
 * The Department of Quiché was created on August 12, 1872.
 * During the 1980s a civil war centered on the Department of Quiché was carried out, killing thousands of people and destroying thousands of villages and hamlets.
 * The Department of Quiché has a population of approximately 656,000 people.

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.

Civil Registration and Church Records
Most of the research you will do will be in these two records.
 * 1877-2008 - at FamilySearch — index and images
 * 1877-1980 - Guatemala, Civil Registration, 1877-1980 - in Ancestry ($) — index and images
 * 1877-1994 -
 * 1877-1994 - Guatemala, Quiché, Civil Registration, 1877-1994. Additional towns.
 * 1581-1977 - Quiché, Guatemala, Catholic Church Records, 1581-1977

Additional online records may be listed in the Family History Library Catalog for places within Guatemala, Quiché.

Reading the Records

 * You do not have to be fluent in Spanish to read your documents. Genealogical records usually contain a limited vocabulary. Use this Spanish Genealogical Word List to translate the important points in the document. Handwriting skills are taught in BYU Spanish Script Tutorial.


 * Online Learning Center class on reading Spanish handwriting:
 * Deciphering Spanish Handwriting


 * Detailed instructions for reading Spanish records, examples of common documents, and practice exercises for developing skills in translating them can be found in the Spanish Records Extraction Manual.
 * The Spanish Documents Script Tutorial also provides lessons and examples.

Building a Family Record with a Search Strategy
Many articles on strategy are available on the Wiki, but here is a simple set of steps to guide you
 * Search for the relative or ancestor you selected. When you find his birth/baptism/christening record, then search for the births of his brothers and sisters.
 * Next, search for the marriage of his parents. The marriage record will have information that will often help you find the birth records of the parents, and even the names of their parents.
 * You can estimate the ages of the parents and determine a birth year to search for their birth records.
 * Search the death registers for all known family members.
 * Repeat this process for both the father and the mother, starting with their birth records, then their siblings' births, then their parents' marriages, and so on.
 * If earlier generations (parents, grandparents, etc.) do not appear in the records, search neighboring parishes.