Guide to Santo Domingo Mission Church Records

Steven Perez
Mar 19
3 min read

Updated: Apr 7

The unindexed mission church records of Santo Domingo are available on FamilySearch. This guide provides a roadmap to how the microfilm records are arranged. There are three books of baptisms, presented out of order on FamilySearch. The first set of images are for the second book, with entries from 1828-1836. The records are only somewhat chronological, so anyone searching for a specific record will need to look carefully at the guide to find the image with the month and year they are looking for. The second part of this book contains prenuptial investigations from 1836 and 1841-1845, which are not part of the Archdiocese’s prenuptial investigation collection extracted by Fray Angélico Chávez’s in his 1983 publication, “New Mexico Roots.” It also contains a book of confirmations from San Felipe Pueblo (Images 68-80) and two scraps on Images 33-34 containing two baptisms from 24 January 1852.

The next baptism book is the earliest one, from 1771-1777. The records that follow can be found in the Santo Ana Mission marriages book (Film 17003, FamilySearch Film # 008251982, 454 images). 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 (see Guide to San Buenaventura de Cochiti Mission Church Records). The records cover the time frame 1777-1827 with a gap from the latter half of 1811 through 1815—and they also contain some baptism records from Cochiti. One of the prenuptial investigations from 1835 includes a note regarding the attestation of a baptism from 1812 or 1813, so I suspect the records from those years were already missing in the 1830’s. The third book of baptisms (1837-1846) is relatively straightforward, with only some images placed out of chronological order. Some records can also be found in the Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe “Loose Documents” microfilm rolls for missions, and “Baptisms for Cochiti, San Felipe and Santo Domingo.” The Center for Southwest Research at UNM has copies of these microfilms.

There are three marriage books. Two are located in this microfilm, covering the time period from 1771-1777 and the other from 1846-1862. The marriage record book for the intervening years (1777-1811, 1817-1845) can be found in the Santo Ana marriages book (Film 17003, FamilySearch Film # 008251982, 454 images).

There are three burial books covering the entire time period from 1771-1869. There were a significant number of burials from February-March 1781. Father José Medrano noted that all of the burials were of those who had died of the smallpox epidemic. There were also an unusually high number of burials in January 1790. In 1800, Father Antonio Caballero noted that there was another smallpox epidemic, corresponding to an increase in the number of burials that year. And on 2 September 1816, Father Gerónimo Riega noted that many residents of the pueblo had died of the plague and had already been buried without having confessed. Lastly, there were a high number of burials in 1861, without any explanation by the priest.

Happy hunting!

Film 17004, FamilySearch Film # 008139484 (476 images)

and Film 17003, FamilySearch Film # 008251982 (454 images)

Baptisms (1771-1811, 1816-1827, 1828-1846)

Prenuptial Investigations (1835, 1841-1845)