Ethnicity, Caste, and Rulership in Mixquiahuala, México

Family Reconstruction

In a recent survey of Colonial Mexican population history, Robert McCaa has judged family reconstruction a hopeless endeavor among the indigenous population (2000:269-270). He points out the flaws in two earlier studies that attempted to use the methodology (Calvo 1984, Klein 1993), and concludes that no parishes have complete enough records of a stable enough population to make the endeavor worthwhile. One study that he omitted was Malvido’s (1980b) proposal to use computer record-linking in her study of Tula’s parish records. Her failure to publish anything else on that particular subject suggests that she did not meet with much success, either.

I was unaware of these previous studies when I began my attempt to link Mixquiahuala’s records together into family histories, and while it is clear that Mexican records are in some ways more problematic than those of European populations to which this method has previously been applied, they also offer some advantages. Most importantly, marriage records generally include the names of both spouse’s parents. Death records, although they do include only a fraction of the population, almost always include either the spouse or the parents of the deceased.

So far, my Mixquiahuala database does not include many complete families–that is, ones where the birth, marriage, and death dates are known of every member–but it includes several that are quite well documented. It may never be possible to judge how representative these families are of the general population, but we can observe some interesting patterns among them.

One example of a family shows the potential for family reconstruction. Maria Ysabel Ximenez, daughter of Gaspar Martin and Josepha Ximenez, was born July 06, 1675 in the Barrio de San Nicolas, Mixquiahuala, the first of nine known children. Six of her siblings predeceased their mother, who was buried September 23, 1700, leaving her husband and three children as heirs. Maria Ysabel married Francisco Martin April 02, 1692 at age sixteen in Mixquiahuala; he was almost eighteen, born April 19, 1674 to Diego Martin and Maria Salome. They had eight known children: Nicolasa (b. 7/7/1699), Bernarda (b. 6/15/1701), Manuela (b. 12/29/1703), Efigenia Maria (b. 12/19/1705), Teresa (b. 2/10/1708), Cayetano Martin (b. 8/18/1711), Agustina Francisca (b. 10/05/1713), and Manuela Maria (b. 1/06/1717). Maria Ysabel was buried October 13, 1722 in Mixquiahuala, at the age of 47. Three of her children, Efigenia Maria Ximenez, Cayetano Martin, and Manuela Maria Ximenez (also known as Manuela Martina) married in Mixquiahuala and had children of their own.

Although a single example like this one has no statistical value, it does highlight some patterns visible elsewhere in the data. These include early marriage, at least by early modern European standards, two to three year spacing between children, and high child mortality. It is also notable that when Maria Ysabel used a surname, it was her mother’s, and when her daughters used a surname, they often used Ximenez as well.

Because of the gap in both birth and marriage records, it is difficult to trace any families before the 1670s. Hopefully, additional work on other archival materials, as well as records from adjoining parishes, will help to bridge this gap.

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