Peru Quick Start Guide

Peru Quick Start Guide

Peru: 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 1930. Limit your results to the country of Peru 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 amount 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.

Peru: Ancestor's birth, marriage or death location and names of parentes, children, or spouse are known
[htpps://familysearch.org/search 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 Peru and under event use ANY and the name of the department in Peru.

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 registering births and marriages in 1886, and deaths in 1857 in most of the municipalities of Peru. However, some places did not begin to register information until 1889. Catholic Church records are excellent sources for accurate information on names, dates, and places of births, marriages, and deaths. Virtually every person who lived in Peru was recorded in a church record, with the exception of the Indians of the eastern rain forests. 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 Peru are online, be sure to check the catalog before giving up on finding 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 Peru 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
 * Mariano F. Paz Soldán, online link to 1877 Diccionario Geográfico Estadístico Del Perú https://archive.org/stream/diccionariogeog01soldgoog#page/n8/mode/2up
 * Directorio Nacional de Municipalidades Provinciales y Distritales (Peru: National Directory of Provincial and District Municipalities) FHL INTL Book 985 E54p 1999.
 * Peru: Official Standard Names approved by the U.S. Board of Geographical Names. (Washington, D.C.: Central Intelligence Agency, 1955), FHL INTL Book 985 E5p; film 1102987 item1).
 * Diccionario enciclopédico del Perú ilustrado. (Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary of Peru). 3 vols. Lima: Editorial Mejia Baca, 1966. (FHL INTL Book 985 A5de; film 1162476 items 1–3.
 * Try a keyword search in the FamilySearch Catalog for Peru Gazetteers

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

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