Guide to San Diego de Jemez Mission Church Records
- Steven Perez
- Feb 5
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 11
Here is my second guide to Catholic Church records available on FamilySearch. This one is for the early records of the San Diego de Jemez Mission, which are not indexed and can be time consuming to navigate.
The first part is labelled, “Roll 4V, Book No. 24 Jemez Baptisms,” but actually contains a combination of burials, baptisms, and marriages, then continues again with baptisms in that order. The earliest records are for sacraments administered to the native residents of the pueblo. Since these records contain only first names, they are of very limited genealogical value:
Images 1-36, burials from 30 August 1701 to 6 July 1720
Images 37-61, baptisms from 7 November 1701 to 11 February 1715
Images 62-79, marriages from 14 unknown month 1701 to 21 July 1720
Images 80-146, baptisms from 12 September 1720 to 21 June 1766
The records then proceed with baptisms from 1767 to 9 March 1829, as shown in the table below. Antonia de los Dolores Baca, daughter of Juan Baca and María Francisca Sandoval of Nacimiento (later called Cuba), was the first Spanish child baptized at the mission on 29 March 1767. The records after 1822 are spotty, with some years missing entirely.
The next section is labelled, “Roll 16V, Book No. 13 Jemez Marriages,” but the second part is actually burials, from 7 September 1720 to 28 April 1776. Once again, the early records only apply to native pueblo residents (Images 208-340 for marriages, and Images 345-390 for burials). The first marriage involving a Spaniard took place on 12 November 1732, between Diego Montoya and Maria Miranda (described as a coyota of the Apache nation). But it was not until 1770 that Spaniards began marrying or being interred at the church.
In December 1728, Father Carlos Delgado made a note of a measles epidemic in the pueblo (and throughout the kingdom), which caused the deaths of 109 individuals. He also reported that there had been an uprising of the pueblo tribes of Jemez, Zia, Santa Ana and Cochiti that same year (Image 361).
The only other noteworthy item is a loose piece of paper on Image 346. It contains two short marriage records from 1 April 1853:
Juan Francisco Madrid, widower of María Rosa Montoya, with María Gregoria de Herrera, single, legitimate daughter of Juan de Herrera (deceased) and Isabel Montoya, vecinos of Chamita.
José Francisco Vigil, legitime son of Ramón Vigil and Catarina Montoya, vecinos of Santa Clara, with María Teresa Luján, single, legitimate daughter of Jesús Luján and María Alfonsa Ortiz, vecinos of San Ildefonso.
Happy hunting!
Film 16787, FamilySearch Film # 008124847 (398 images)
Baptisms (1767-1821, 1824, 1827-1829)
Marriages, Burials (1770-1776)
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