Tying it all together?

Tying genealogical records together is an interesting practice by a lot of folks researching their New Mexican roots. And most are tied together if your ancestors were Hispanic and in New Mexico prior to the American occupation. Many Native Americans were assimilated into the group, as were a few  Anglos" who were here in the era.

We are all connected way back if you subscribe to one of the many beliefs as to the origin of the human race. Adam and Eve? The primordial ooze? The coyote crawling out of a New Mexican hole?

We in New Mexico have a unique ability to do this in part because of church records left behind by the Catholic priests of days gone by. There were some mistakes to be sure. Seems like sometimes instead of asking who the "abuelos maternos" were they guessed as to who they were. Sometimes they documented it from memory a few days later and made errors.

Then along comes Archbishop Lamy and he ends up defrocking the native New Mexican priests for what ever reason. Lamy is proof positive that even smart folks can make stupid mistakes and he made many.

He imported French, and later some Itilian, priests to replace defrocked native New Mexican priests. Some of these native priests continued doing what they were doing before being defrocked. That is holding services, marrying, baptizing and administering Catholic sacraments.

Anyway, these imported priests kept up the practice of recording sacramental happenings which facilitate genealogical research of our New Mexican ancestors.

Here is a funny post by Jill Gatwood on the matter of tying family members together. Click on the site below;

http://jillgat.blogspot.com/index.html#4956249936023802355