Website to Help You Find Where Your Ancestors Were From In Mexico

While conducting my own Mexican Genealogy research I came across a Website to Help You Find Where Your Ancestors Were From In Mexico. This website is a great tool since we can use it when we come across names of haciendas or towns in Mexico that cannot be found on Google maps or anywhere else on the internet. The following website will help you find or at least narrow down the location of where that town or hacienda may be.

Before I go any further I want to thank Jaime Trejo for sharing this amazing tool with us. The website that Jaime shared with us is a Mexican Government website called “Catalogo de Localidades” and it is maintained and hosted by SEDESOL Secretaria de Desarollo Social. You can find the link to visit it towards the end of this post.

How can you use this tool on your Mexican Genealogy Research?

Very simple, let’s say that you know that your ancestors came from Tamaulipas, Mexico and you find a document that indicates that they were born in La Reyna Azteca, Mexico. Good, now you have a name and you try to find it in Google maps only to be taken to a city in Chile South America. Obviously, that is wrong you are looking for a town in Tamaulipas, Mexico. Now with the Catalogo de Localidades all you have to do is on the home page click Tamaulipas on the map and towards the center of the page you will find in red “Listado de municipios” and to your right hand find two excel files available for download. The one titled “Exportar listado de Localidades” is a list of every locality found within that state plus statistical data. Also next to it there is another excel file titled “Exportar listado de Municipios” which is just a list of local municipalities that contains statistical information about them.

After I downloaded the list “Exportar listado de Localidades” I opened it using excel and pressed “CTRL+F” entered La Reyna Azteca and there it was. It showed that it was located in the Municipality of Miguel Aleman, Tamaulipas.

Now, what do you do with this information?

You do research on the municipality and find the local and historical parishes to find church information on your ancestors. Also, do research on the history of the municipality. For example, I found out that the Municipality was created in the 1950’s and prior to that it used to be the municipality of Mier which had been around since the 1750’s. Also historically La Reyna Azteca used to belong to the local Mier Parish. Also look into civil records for the municipality.

You can use the same example that I did for every state in Mexico. I also found that areas that have been named are also listed. For example, Los Guajillos is an area that covers many miles and many ranches and is not listed in maps but was also listed on the list. I also found many other towns that I have been to but do not appear on maps.

Snapshot of Website to Help You Find Where Your Ancestors Were From In Mexico:

Visit Website:

This is the link to the Website to Help You Find Where Your Ancestors Were From In Mexico: http://www.microrregiones.gob.mx/catloc/Default.aspx

Once again thanks Jaime for making me aware of this great resource.

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Locating Your Mexican Ancestors Ranch or Town In Mexico Prior to 1888