Spain Quick Start Guide

Spain Quick Start Guide

Spain: 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 Spain and the name of the province 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 informaiton 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.

Spain: 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 Paraguay and under event use ANY and the name of the province in Spain.

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 in Spain began in 1870 but these records have not been microfilmed or digitized. Some municipalities in Spain began keeping civil registration records before 1870. If those are filmed they will be in FamilySearch collections called Spain, Province of (name of province), Municipal records. 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 Spain was recorded in a church record.

FamilySearch Catalog: Not all records for Spain 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 they married in Spain 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
It is important to insure that you have the correct province for the locality. You can find the name of the province several ways. Check Google.com, todopueblos.com, or diccionariomadoz.org all online. The last two are only in Spanish. Use Google Chrome to help you translate the page if needed. Enter the name of the locality and begin to search. You might also try entering the name of the locality in the FamilySearch catalog. It must be spelled correctly.

Online resources

 * Dokuklik: Has online parish indexes for the three provinces of the Basque Coutnry - Alava, Guipúzcoa, and Vizcaya.
 * Pares: to find addresses and informaiton about archives in Spain. They also have some indexes and online images from different national archives in Spain.
 * Archdiocesis of Tarragona Church Records: Images of church records from throughout the Archdiocese of Tarragona. The page is in Catalan. Use Google Translate to help ou translate the page. Requires a free subscription.
 * Antzinako: A site for the Basque region of Spain with some records extracted. The record collections are not complete.
 * List of parishes by diocese: This website has an interactive map with links that take you to the Diocese websites. From those websites many times you can find information about the archive.
 * Civil Registration offices, searchable by name of municipality, judicial district, or province: This website allows you to search for the different Civil Regsitration offices. It will also allow you to order a Civil Registration record from the offices.
 * For other online resources please review the Wiki article Hispanic genealogy Resource Online.

If FamilySearch does not have records
If the ancestor was born after 1870 and birth date, birth place, and names of parents are known, send for a free copy of the birth certificate. This FamilySearch Wiki article explains how to do it in English, Order Spain Vital Records Online. The same article is also available in the Spanish Wiki, Solicitud de registros civiles españoles en línea.

Yahoo Groups online: Invite them to join one of many Yahoo Genealogy groups in Spain where they can get help from others with interests in the same geographical area. You can find this lis in the FamilySEarch Wiki. In English: Hispanic Genealogy Groups and Forums Online en Español. In Spanish: Grupos y foros de genealogía en el Internet.

Immigration resources
Spain to Latin America: You must find a document in the country where he immigrated to indicate the place in Spain. If they went to another country in Latin America, this could be a Catholic church record or a civil registration record. There are very few passenger lists or naturalization records that will give you this information.

Spain to US: If they came to the US, see the General Resources document for record types.