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= Puerto Rico Getting Started =

This page is designed to help you find your ancestors who lived in Puerto Rico. Getting started with research on your ancestor from Puerto Rico is not difficult. This page is designed to give you a few ideas about how to get started. Begin by following these steps:

1. Write down what you know
Start with yourself. Begin by writing down what you know about yourself, your parents, and your grandparents. Use the link below to print a pedigree chart you can use to enter the names, dates, and places you may already know. If you do not know exact dates and places, estimate them. Circle any missing or incomplete information, and decide what you want to find first.

Pedigree Chart

Use a family group sheet to record information about family groups. Use one form for each family. You will record the names of the husband and wife at the top of the form and then list each of their children in the order they were born.

Family group sheet

2. Gather records
Begin by looking for records that you may already have around your home. Many important clues can be found in the things we already have at home. Here is a list of the types of records that might be of use:


 * Certificates of births, deaths, and marriages
 * Funeral programs
 * Documents relating to education
 * Documents about military service
 * Photographs
 * Newspaper articles
 * Birth announcements
 * Marriage announcements
 * Obituaries
 * Letters
 * Passports
 * Citizenship or naturalization papers
 * Family bibles
 * Journals

3. Talk with your family
Contact your family and friends. Record any useful information and stories they provide. Ask about copies of birth, marriage, and death certificates as well as journals, letters, photos, and other records that might be available. Find out if they know other people you should contact. Be sure to record any new information.

Although sometimes memories can be faulty, you can usually get some great clues as you interview older relatives. It’s also important to remember that many family legends prove to be unreliable but usually there are bits and pieces, or perhaps one small thread in these legends that might prove to be true.

For more tips for beginners be sure to read the article Getting Started

4. Preserve and share what you have gathered
As you take this genealogical journey remember that your relatives and family friends may also be interested to learn more about their ancestors and heritage. Please share with them the information you find. It may spark more memories and clues that will help you along the way. You can preserve, share, and donate your family history with the help of free software found at FamilySearch.org.

5. Ask for help
Visit a local FamilySearch Center for free personal help and many other valuable services. Center staff may also direct you to other local community resources. Find a center near you online at Find a Family History Center. You can leave a question on our Facebook Research Community pages. For those who speak Spanish you may feel more comfortable posting in the page Puerto Rico Genealogy Research. If you prefer a page that is predominantly in English, we recommend the Hispanic Genealogy Research page which has been designed for those who have Hispanic ancestry but may not speak much, if any Spanish.

6. Know the town of origin in Puerto Rico
Probably the most important piece of information you will need to begin research in Puerto Rico is the name of a specific town in Puerto Rico where your ancestor was from. The article Locating Place of Origin will give you some ideas about what you can do to find this important piece of the genealogical puzzle.

If you already know the name of the town or village in Puerto Rico where your ancestor came from, you are now ready to begin looking for records. Please see the article Finding Records to help you locate the records of your ancestor’s hometown in Puerto Rico.

For more information see the Puerto Rico Quick Start Guide.

= Puerto Rico Finding Records =

Online Records
*ONLINE RECORDS BUTTON

Online Civil Registration
Births, marriages, deaths, indexes and other records created by civil registration offices in Puerto Rico. Some records may date prior to 1885 as a few municipalities began civil registration before that date. Some of these records have been indexed and are searchable as part of this collection. Additional indexed records will be published as they become available.
 * - at FamilySearch. Partial index, images, incomplete.

To search the same collection by municipality, use: A wiki article describing an online collection is found at:
 * - at FamilySearch. Images, incomplete.


 * Puerto Rico Civil Registration Records - FamilySearch Historical Records

The same collection is available on Ancestry.com. If you do not have a membership, you can search these records for free at a Family History Center:
 * Puerto Rico, Civil Registrations, 1885-2001, index and images, ($)

Online Church Records
FamilySearch has Catholic Church records from the Archdiocese of San Juan Historical Archive available online in its collection. They include records from the municipalities of:

A wiki article describing an online collection is found at:

Puerto Rico Catholic Church Records - FamilySearch Historical Records

Municipality
To find church, civil or other records for your ancestor in Puerto Rico using the FamilySearch catalog, you will need to know the various levels of jurisdictions (government or religious administrative divisions) in Puerto Rico. Only two locality levels are normally used. The country of Puerto Rico is divided into municipalities (municipios), and cities, towns, villages, etc.

Under the municipality level you will find civil registration records. In large cities there may be several offices. Some small towns may not be their own municipality and therefore their records will not be kept in the town. You will need to determine the correct municipality or municipio in order to locate the civil registration records. Municipality records will be located in the FamilySearch catalog under the name of the municipio.

Church
Church records are listed in the catalog under the city or town where the parish is located. A parish is an ecclesiastical jurisdiction where a Catholic priest serves and keeps records. The parish is usually named for a Saint and is located in the largest town in the parish jurisdiction. Large cities may have many parishes while a small town usually only have one.

Place Levels (Jurisdictions)
Places are usually written from smallest to largest on a family group record:

Bayamón, Bayamón, Puerto Rico

City/town, County, Country

The Civil Registration records are located a the county level, and you will need to know this to find the civil registration records in the FamilySearch Catalog.

When you want to include the parish, which is especially important in large cities, in your locality field you would write it in the following manner:

San Mateo, Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico

Parish, City/town, County, Country

The parish of San Mateo is located in the city of Santurce in the county of San Juan.

To find your localities, see the following sources:

 * A great resource is the Spanish Wikipedia page. It has a page for most of the municipalities of Puerto Rico, that tell you the history of the municipality and from what municpality it was created.
 * Google Maps is a great place to figure out distances between towns.

To find your Catholic parish, see the following sources:

 * You can learn if your ancestor’s town or city had an established parish by checking a Catholic church directory. It will list the archdiocese officials and the dioceses with their parishes, so you can easily determine all nearby parishes. It may include historical information about each parish, and sometimes it provides addresses for parishes, the diocese headquarters, and the diocese archives where additional records may be kept.

If your ancestor came from a large city that had several parishes, you will need to know what section of the city he or she lived in to determine what parish he or she belonged to. However, in a large city such as San Juan, you may find that even if you know the closest parish, sometimes the family went to the cathedral or the parish of a relative in the same city for the baptism of a child. If you do not find the complete family in the home parish, search the surrounding parishes of the city.

If your family lived in a very small village that did not have an established parish, you will need to check a map, church directory, or gazetteer to determine which nearby town had a parish.

Records from FamilySearch
Once you have identified the name and jurisdiction of the town of your ancestors you will want to check the FamilySearch Catalog and FamilySearch Record Collections for records about your ancestors. For more information about how to search the FamilySearch catalog you will want to read Using the FamilySearch Catalog.

To search the catalog, as well as indexed records and images available online from FamilySearch, you will need to visit FamilySearch.org. To find the record collections for Puerto Rico, scroll down the page and click on Caribbean, Central and South America.

= Puerto Rico Quick Start Guide =

Puerto Rico: Ancestor's birth, marriage, or death location unknown
US Census Records, 1910-1940: For those living in Puerto Rico during this time period the US Census is essential. The census forms are in Spanish but they are the same as their English counterparts. Follow the same rules that you would use for US Census research. Use the option to limit the locality by the country "United States" and the state as "Other."

FamilySearch Indexed records: Try searching first in indexed records. Try a variety of searches with ancestor’s name, or with parent’s names, or just by parent’s surnames AND using the option to limit locality by country Puerto Rico.

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.

Puerto Rico: 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 parent’s names, or just by parent’s surnames AND using the option to limit locality by country Puerto Rico.

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 1885 in Puerto Rico. Catholic Church records are also a good choice as they cover all time periods. 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 Puerto Rico are online, be sure to check the catalog before giving up on finding records.

Research Strategies
Who to search for? 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 the married in Puerto Rico 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 Puerto Rico Gazetteers

Online resources
For other online resources please review the Wiki article Hispanic Genealogy Resources Online. Also check the Firefox Bookmarks on the reference counter computer. Puerto Rico Online Genealogy Records

Online Civil Registration
Births, marriages, deaths, indexes and other records created by civil registration offices in Puerto Rico. Some records may date prior to 1885 as a few municipalities began civil registration before that date. Some of these records have been indexed and are searchable as part of this collection. Additional indexed records will be published as they become available.
 * - at FamilySearch. Partial index, images, incomplete.

To search the same collection by municipality, use: A wiki article describing an online collection is found at:
 * - at FamilySearch. Images, incomplete.


 * Puerto Rico Civil Registration Records - FamilySearch Historical Records

The same collection is available on Ancestry.com. Their search engine is more powerful. If you do not have a membership, you. can search these records for free at a Family History Center:
 * Puerto Rico, Civil Registrations, 1885-2001, index and images, ($)

Online Church Records
FamilySearch has Catholic Church records from the Archdiocese of San Juan Historical Archive available online in its collection. They include records from the municipalities of:

A wiki article describing an online collection is found at:

Immigration resources
If you’re looking for immigrants who arrived in Puerto Rico, there are several good books and films in the FamilySearch catalog under the subject Puerto Rico emigration and immigration.