14 Useful Free Resources for Hispanic Genealogy
Today is the start of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from September 15 to October 15. It began in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week and was expanded to a month in the 1980s.
In honor of the occasion, I wanted to share some free websites to use in your genealogy research.
Hispanic genealogy is a big topic, though, since it covers so many countries. I looked for resources that reflect the different regions, from Mexico to Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean.
Many sites in English are focused on Mexican genealogy, while all I found for Central and South America are in Spanish. I’ve included a mix of both. If you don’t speak Spanish, Google Translate is a big help.
14 Hispanic genealogy websites
1) WorldGenWeb. The WorldGenWeb is a volunteer-based organization that provides genealogical records and resources for online access. Some countries have more information than others. Here’s a few of the countries/territories:
2) Cuban Genealogy Center. This bilingual site has links to Cuban phone directories, archives, military databases, and other resources. They also run a Facebook group.
3) Genealogias de Colombia [in Spanish] has a searchable database with over 500,000 people, as well as books on various surnames.
4) The Genealogy of Mexico has many resources, from the history of Mexico to a DNA surname project to surname research.
5) Genealogia Familiar [in Spanish] has a large collection of digitized items on Argentinian genealogy. There are passenger lists, biographies, gravestone photos, and more. You can also search by last name and find any descendant or ancestor information, if available. It began as a project focused on the founding families of Argentina and then grew from there.
6) Genealogia de la Republica Dominicana [in Spanish]. This site has resources like censuses, indexes, and links to other info. This site doesn’t look like it’s been updated since 2011, but still has some helpful information.
7) Familias Argentinas [in Spanish] hosts a family tree database with nearly 400,000 names.
8) Mexican Genealogy offers resources organized by the different states in Mexico.
9) The National Library of Chile [in Spanish] has some digitized newspapers from the 1800s and early 1900s. They’re not searchable and you have to download the entire file to page through them.
10) Mauricio Melendez’s site [in Spanish] has information on genealogical research across Central America, including El Salvador, Guatemala, and Panama.
11) Genealogia del Paraguay [in Spanish] offers information on the census, books on Paraguayan genealogy, and resources for a few common surnames.
12) Caribbean Genealogy Library. Based in the US Virgin Islands, this small library has resources for people with families from Puerto Rico, Cuba, or the Dominican Republic. Although it doesn’t have any online collections for Hispanic genealogy right now, there are suggested resources and you can contact them with questions.
13) The Hispanic Genealogical Research Center of New Mexico maintains the Great New Mexico Pedigree Database. This database is a connected pedigree chart of people with New Mexican Hispanic ancestry, letting anyone easily find the combined research of others.
14) National genealogical institutes. Many South American countries also have genealogical institutes, like Instituto Peruano de Investigaciones Genealogicas and Instituto Argentino de Ciencias Genealogicas. While the sites are in Spanish, they have tips for researching genealogy in those countries, and links to publications and other resources like national archives.
Genealogical societies
You know I love historical and genealogy societies! Luckily, there are a lot of genealogical societies for people with Hispanic roots.
Most of these also have resources on their websites. They also have publications like their society newsletter.
There are a few general societies, or you can look for one where your ancestor lived or in your area.
Here’s a sampling:
Los Californios for descendants of the early Hispanic settlers of today’s California.
Other posts you may be interested in
What you need to know about Mexican civil registration records
7 free websites to help you find your Caribbean ancestors
Do you have any other websites that you love to use to research your Hispanic ancestry? Please share in the comments!
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