Dear Emilie:
Did you also check film 0439868? This film also had baptisms for 1903. I usually check the film before or after if the years are duplicated. They may have the 1st part of the year on one film, then the second on the other.
Worth a try if you have not already done so. By the way, my mother-in-law was also told the church records had burned, but lo and behold, the LDS had all the records on film for her family. I was happy to give her a copy of her baptism.

Maureen Bejar

So from what you are telling me I am assuming that you have looked at the
Información Matrimonial prior to your fathers birth as well as the
Matrimonios? Did you find the death record for your GMother Gorgonia?
Normally people where married in the locality where the bride is from. But
the Banns are “normally” published in both localities. Have you looked at
military records they might have additional information, who knows?

Ed,

I did look at the films for the matrimonios and the death records and found nothing. However, there are hundreds of rolls of films for Jerez alone, and I have been able to order and view only about a couple of dozen, and I haven’t ordered the Dispensation films. I think I did look at the “hijos naturales” at the main FHC and there was nothing there.

I did send an e-mail for information about the military to a site recommended by someone in NR that lives in Mexico, since both my grandfather Francisco Olague Felix/Tinajero and and his brother-in-law Jose Garcia Davila had been revolutionary soldiers with high ranks, but they only had information on high-ranking Federales officers, not revolutionaries.

Jose’s grandfather was a wealthy espanol hacendado who disowned his daughter for marrying an “indio”. All the more reason for Jose to join the revolutionaries and marry the sister (Angela) of his fellow revolutionary, my grandfather.

My grandfather and his brother-in-law were going to be executed by a firing squad in Jerez, but my father’s aunt Angela, the sister of my grandfather, used what influence she had left, loaded some of their possessions onto a train headed to Chihuahua, and got them out of Jerez just in time. I don’t think anyone kept records of those that had been executed or scheduled for execution.

My father’s cousin, the son of Angela, [born in Colorado as was I] told me that his mother had told him that somewhere along the way from Jerez to Chihuahua the Mexican authorities confiscated all her large “petaquillas” [trunks], so all her records, photos, and mementos were gone. She told him that the trunks had also contained the military uniforms, gunbelts, etc. of her brother and husband.

I think they spent some time in Chihuahua, but Gorgonia was left behind in Jerez in her grave as were her parents, if they were even from Jerez. My father’s cousin has no idea of the time frame for their travels. My father and his father’s generations are all long gone. They could have left Jerez as early as 1909, but didn’t cross over the border until 1916-1917 never to return to Mexico. I know that his Olague grandfather, Pedro, died when he was just a toddler because my father remembered him. I think his grandfather raised him after his mother Gorgonia died. Pedro didn’t live to cross the border, only his wife Rafaela did.

Health issues (my kidneys have failed) keep me from going out to the FHC and ordering more films. I only get out to see doctors and take tests, etc. We have been to SLC twice and my husband likes that city a lot, so I will try to get there before I get worse or later if I get better. That is the best way to view films there where they have them all. In the meantime, I can only hope that Family Search will put up the Zacatecas records online for us, the sooner the better.

Thanks,

Emilie

> Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:30:50 -0600
> From: eduardohseoane@gmail.com
> To: research@nuestrosranchos.org
> Subject: Re: [Nuestros Ranchos] Brick Walls—Research Digest, Vol 50, Issue 16
>
> So from what you are telling me I am assuming that you have looked at the
> Información Matrimonial prior to your fathers birth as well as the
> Matrimonios? Did you find the death record for your GMother Gorgonia?
> Normally people where married in the locality where the bride is from. But
> the Banns are “normally” published in both localities. Have you looked at
> military records they might have additional information, who knows?

Hi, Maureen,

Yes I have checked both 0439867 1899-1903) and 0439868 (1903-1907) and did not find my father. I did find some of his first cousins. I also checked the film for the Civil Registry 1081921 for 1903-1904 and found nothing, but then my father knew he hadn’t been registered in the Civil Registry since he went there himself in 1965 and he had to pay a lawyer and the court to add him on.

Thanks,

Emilie

> To: research@lists.nuestrosranchos.org
> From: mytmo@netnitco.net
> Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:54:28 -0700
> Subject: [Nuestros Ranchos] Brick Walls—Research Digest, Vol in, Issue 16, 1903 Jerez Bapt
>
> Dear Emilie:
> Did you also check film 0439868? This film also had baptisms for 1903. I usually check the film before or after if the years are duplicated. They may have the 1st part of the year on one film, then the second on the other.
> Worth a try if you have not already done so. By the way, my mother-in-law was also told the church records had burned, but lo and behold, the LDS had all the records on film for her family. I was happy to give her a copy of her baptism.
>
> Maureen Bejar
>
>

I was talking about military records in the United States also Ancestry has
World War I draft records amongst others. There might be information there.
You might also want to look at relatives of Gorgonia brothers, sisters,
etc., that might have remained in México. Their descendants might have
additional information.

Dear Ed,

I have looked at the WWI records in Ancestry. I found some records for my father’s cousins, but they are the sons of my grandfather’s brother Ygnacio Olague who crossed the border with him and they are not related to my father’s grandmother Gorgonia.

I can’t track relatives of Gorgonia because I don’t know who Gorgonia’s siblings and their descendants were. I have tried finding records for anyone born to Ygnacio Garcia and Maria Gaudalupe Rodriguez, her parents, and find nothing, not Gorgonia or any siblings.

There just are no records in Mexico for my father, even, or his only sibling, or their mother Gorgonia. I was hoping to find Ygnacio and Maria Guadalupe in Jerez (marriage, birth, children). I find nothing.

My father himself went to Jerez in 1965 and tried to track down anyone who remembered his parents and could find no one after fifty years of having been gone from there. He did hire a lawyer and paid the court for a belated birth certificate and listing in the Civil Registry which had not been done at his birth.

There were two witnesses during the court proceeding who claimed that they had known his parents, but they must be dead now. Did you read my e-mail about who those men were? They had surnames (Escobedo and Soriano) that appear among my father’s ancestors, and I have tried to look for those men in the Jerez records and I don’t find them. They could just have been neighbors or maybe my father just paid them to be his witnesses.

I have tried contacting people in Jerez to see if they know of those men via e-mail but I get no response, or I get promises from those who have lived in the US and moved back to Jerez to search for me, but I never hear from them again.

One person did send me a list of the Olagues that he found still living in Jerez, but I don’t speak enough Spanish to contact them. If my father couldn’t get any information on his relatives (he would have told us if he had found a distant cousin, etc.) then I don’t know how I can do it.

I guess I will have that brick wall until Family Search puts more records online.

Thanks sincerely,

Emilie

> Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:20:38 -0600
> From: eduardohseoane@gmail.com
> To: research@nuestrosranchos.org
> Subject: Re: [Nuestros Ranchos] Brick Walls—Research Digest, Vol 50, Issue 16
>
> I was talking about military records in the United States also Ancestry has
> World War I draft records amongst others. There might be information there.
> You might also want to look at relatives of Gorgonia brothers, sisters,
> etc., that might have remained in México. Their descendants might have
> additional information.

Eduardo,

Thank you for your help. I apologize for the delay in my response. I found some info on my grandfather. I now have my great grandmother’s name, it was Felipa Valdez. One of his sister’s was Maria Dolores.
>From what I know, he was the only one who came over. I have searched the border crossings on Ancestry. com & I found my grandfather & grandmother on them. I don’t know who his uncles or aunts were but I will continue to search.

Thanks again,
Barbara Guerrero
Original Message —–
From: Eduardo Seoane
To: research@nuestrosranchos.org
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2010 10:13 AM
Subject: Re: [Nuestros Ranchos] Brick Walls—Research Digest, Vol 50,Issue 16

If you provide more information, like the name of the siblings, (uncles and
aunts of your father) of your grandfather then maybe someone in the group
could look for those border crossings on Ancestry.com