Los Trigos Land Grant

Click on the image to make it larger.

New Mexican Names in the late 1800's

The list above is popular names in the USA today. Some of them were in use in New Mexico long ago also.

Ramon, Roman, Andelacio, Ygnacia, Justinaniano, Refugio, Dolores, Domingo, Librada, Guadalupe and on and on and on. These were very common names in the 1800's.

In a lot of cases they would go just as well on a man as a woman. Refugio could be used for either. Same with Ygnacia(o), Dolores, Librada(o) Guadalupe, Domingo(a), Ramon(a) Roman(a).

I liked these type of first names and do not see them much any more. Now we are in the process of merging all of the names in the country, or so it seems. No more Domingo's, no more Refugio's. Lucky if we get a Robert or a Jane in there. At least we can call them Roberto or Juana. But I guess we must move on.

I notice that folks in the bigger cities do this "merging" more so than folks in the smaller towns. But all is ok I guess till we start like the pro basketball players mothers. No two have the same first name. When was the last time you saw a Bob playing basket ball. Now baseball is different, with all of the folks from South America and Cuba, Puerto Rico etc.

And good bye to the nick names associated with a person's real name, some of them were funny. My grandmother's name was Ignacia and her nick name was Nacha. There were Nacho's, Kiko's, Chavela's, Tito's, Lalo's and a whole lot more. For the most part, they are gone forever.

Brief, Very Brief, Analysis of the Watrous 1900 Census Posts.

The Turkey Mountains between Ft. Union and Watrous. Click on the image to make it larger.

It took quite a while to get the Watrous 1900 census done 240+ individuals. The last page first type of putting it together is hard to read, sorry bout that, but it was hard to do.

It shows that for New Mexico in 1900, Watrous was a bit more diverse than other Northern New Mexico communities. There were many forign born folks there, most there because of Ft. Union. I think you can safely say that all were there because of Ft. Union.

By 1900 folks had started moving away from the communities associated with Ft. Union. The work associated with the fort was now gone. No fort, no jumping of point for the wagon trains of the now gone Santa Fe Trail.

There are several conclusions that can be drawn by looking at the whole picture. Intermarriage was increasing as contact with New Mexican Hispanics increased by the forigners.  A lot more intermarriage than in other places. Mostly the Hispanic women marring forign and American males. There does seem to be some "coyotes" showing up in this census in Watrous.

The educational disparity is glaring. Most of the anglos could read and write and speak English. I am sure a few spoke Spanish. Amongst New Mexican Hispanic males several could read and write Spanish, but few could read and write and speak English. There were some but not many. Not many Hispanic females had an education, not even this late date. None noted here could speak English.