Guide to Santa Ana Mission Church Records

Steven Perez
Apr 9
2 min read

The unindexed mission church records of Santa Ana are available on FamilySearch. This guide provides a roadmap to how the microfilm records are arranged. There is one baptism book, presented in chronological order, but missing the years 1831-1832 and 1834-1840. The first marriage book is the oldest one that I have seen for New Mexico on FamilySearch, containing marriage records from 1694 to 1711. Most of these records are for native pueblo marriages, but they contain valuable genealogical information, including the last names and parental lineage of the couples. There is one marriage record for a Spanish couple (Image 136): Felix de la Candelaria and Petrona Varela of Bernalillo, married on 4 October 1699 with witnesses Salvador Romero and his wife María López.

The second marriage book is fairly straightforward, covering the time period 1772-1828 except for a brief gap from the last part of 1787 to the first half of 1790. However, the last part of this book surprisingly contains Santo Domingo baptisms (1777-1811, 1816-1827) and marriages (1777-1811, 1817-1845) as well as some records from San Buenaventura de Cochiti. Father Juan Antonio Caballero, the priest assigned to these parishes during this time frame, was not known for his good record-keeping skills and may be responsible for mixing up the books. For details on those records, see the Guide to Santo Domingo Mission Church Records and the Guide to San Buenaventura de Cochiti Mission Church Records. There is also one baptism that Father Juan Caballero performed in Santa Fe at the Castrense Chapel, on 15 May 1819 for María Manuela Mares, daughter of Juan Joseph Mares and María Teresa Trujillo (Image 328).

The two burial books cover the time period (1765-1771) and (1726-1752) but are mostly for pueblo natives and do not have identifying genealogical information. There are only two records pertaining to burials of Spaniards: a forty-year-old named Nicolás Gallegos, husband of Isabel Jaramillo, buried in the Bernalillo church on 13 May 1740 (Image 441); and a one-year old infant from Bernalillo named Miguel de los Ángeles (no parents or last name listed) who died on 12 July 1740 (Image 441).

Happy hunting!

Film 17003, FamilySearch Film # 008251982 (454 images)

Baptisms (1771-1830, 1833, 1841-1844)