Having Mexican roots means that there is a high probability that you also have a Hispanic last name.

I recently bought a new batch of books for our genealogy group Las Villas del Norte and one of those was titled Hispanic Surnames and Family History.

This book contains thousands of last names and provides you with a great deal of data as to its distribution by country especially the United States.

It contains great information that pertains to Mexico and thus that is the main reason that I am sharing it with you.

This book ranks last names by the estimated number of people that have that last name. Garza was 574 but keep in mind that the statistical data was from before 1996.

How to use the book Hispanic Surnames and Family History

At first glance, I was disappointed with this book but that changed quickly when I discovered the section titled “Spanish Surnames for Which There Exist Histories or Historical Sketches in the United States and Latin America”.

To tell you the thruth, this section is what makes this book worth every penny and more.

I searched for Garza and I quickly discovered that there are four known works on this last name and they were listed as follows. Brown (Mex,Texas); Garcia 7 (Mex, Texas): Garza (Mex, Texas); Mendirichaga 4,5 (Mex, Texas).

I then jumped to page 93 winch contained the “Bibliography of Family Histories in The United States and Latin America” and this is what I found.

Brown (Mex, Texas) = Brown, Edna Garza. Origin of the Surnames Garza and Trevino in Nuevo Leon. Translation of the work by Tomas Mendirichaga Cueva (q.v.). Corpus Christi, 1989

Garcia 7 (Mex, Texas) = Garcia, Cleotilde P. Captain Blas Maria de la Garza Falcon: Colonizer of South Texas. Austin, 1984

Garza (Mex, Texas) = Garza, Lionel. Our Family, Garza-Vela, Barrera-Martinez: From the Roots to the Fruits. Kingsville, TX 1986

Mendirichaga 4,5 (Mex, Texas) = Origen de los Apellidos Garza y Trevino en Nuevo Leon. Monterrey 1982.

What is great is that you can search for any last name and see if there is something published about it and where it may be located. The above example provided me with what I needed to search for those books. It turns out that my local university has three out of the four mentioned.

FYI, this book is an excellent choice for the serious researchers and or genealogy societies whom may have members researching Mexico. Also, keep in mind that it was published in 1996 and thus we still have 20 years of published material that is not included.

Cover of Book: Hispanic Surnames and Family History

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$0.01 Used and $19.95 New Buy Now

Description of the book by Amazon:

This is an exhaustive review of the development of Spanish surnames in Latin America and the Hispanic United States where there are obvious links between Latin American and Spanish families. (The word Hispanic refers to persons born in Latin America or the U.S. whose parents spoke Spanish and whose principal cultural background was Spanish; Latin America refers to those countries south of the U.S. border, including Puerto Rico and Cuba; and the phrase Hispanic United States refers historically to California, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida.) One of the principal aims of the book is to show the dispersion and commonality of Hispanic surnames throughout the Americas, with studies showing: (1) the top 1,000 Hispanic surnames in the U.S. and Latin America; (2) l,500 surnames studied by the Institute of Genealogy and History for Latin America (sponsors of this work); (3) the 12,567 Hispanic surnames in the 1980 U.S. census; and (4) surnames unique to particular Latin American countries. At the very heart of the book is a bibliography of Hispanic family histories in the U.S. and Latin America, certainly, the most extensive list of its kind ever compiled.

Table of Contents:

Here is the table of contents of this book so that you may know exactly what it contains.

Get Your Copy of The Book Hispanic Surnames and Family History

At the moment of writing this the only place that I could find it was at Amazon.com and was selling starting at $0.01 used and $19.95.39 new. If you are interested in buying this book click here BUY NOW to buy from Amazon.

I hope that you find this book useful and informative as I have. Please let me know in the comment area of what you thought about this book.