I recently came across two books that document The Genealogy of the Oldest Families of Mexico. Both were written by Don Ricardo Ortega y Perez Gallardo in 1908. They are titled Historia Genealogica de las Familias Mas Antiguas de Mexico.
Don Ricardo’s focus is the genealogy of the titled and noble families of Mexico.
It is my opinion that he focused on these families since in the early 1900’s they were easier to research since most of the records could be found in Mexico City.
Regardless, these two books are an excellent resource and a must read for everyone. In the first volume’s introduction, he goes into detail explaining the origin of nobility and titles in Spain and subsequently in Mexico.
He also offers a description of each title and the benefits that the titleholder was entitled to.
I searched both volumes, over 2000 pages, and only found a few of my ancestors whose children married into some of the mentioned families.
The time period covered by these genealogies is 1500’s to the 1900’s. Unfortunately, death or birth dates are not provided, but one can assume the date range since the authors focus is Mexico and the number of generations provided for some lineages.
Overall I highly recommend that you download these free eBooks and search for your own ancestors there. even if you don’t find any make sure to save them since the further back you get on your research the easier it will be to link up to some of the mentioned families.
The Genealogy of the Oldest Families of Mexico
Download This Resource
These two books are available from Google books. To download click on the links below and then hover your mouse over the red button labeled “EBOOK-FREE” on the left-hand side. A menu will appear and then just click where it says “Download PDF”. These instructions are for a desktop computer if you are using a phone or tablet it may be different.
Historia Genealógica de las Familias mas Antiguas de Mexico Volume 1
Historia Genealógica de las Familias mas Antiguas de Mexico Volume 2
Below are other two great resources that may be of interest to you.
Other Similar Resources
Descendants of Conquistadors and First Spanish Settlers of New Spain
Thanks for this great info. I was able to easily download all of these books. Your blogs have been invaluable in my research.
I checked the FamilySearch catalog for “Historia Genealógica de las Familias mas Antiguas de México” and found out they have an additional volume. The 3 volumes have been digitized, but only the images are available to read free online. Here’s the link
https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/80104?availability=Family%20History%20Library
Thank you for making us aware of volume 3.
To download on Android phone, when the volume is selected it will take you to read or order book. The red button says “read book”. Instead of selecting that red button, to the upper right hand corner is a gray settings button. When you open that, it gives you the choice to download pdf. Wait for the download, followed by the “open” selection, then send a copy to yourself or others via choice of method.
Thanks for the tip.