Corrine...

Whatever source you have for passenger records not begining until the
1900s is wrong. There are very good (and now nearly fully indexed)
passenger records for legal immigration from Spain (all immigration
even of non-Spaniards had to be through Spain for control purposes)
beginning in the mid 1500s not too long after the conquest of Mexico.

You can find all of these records online through AER.

If you are looking for the Cabrals from Zacatecas I think there is a
Mormon genealogist who has done and paid for a lot of research on that
family based in Jerez, Zacatecas. If you search for past postings you
can find a link to his site.

What is your source for the immigration of Francisca Cabral's parents
immigration. It seems that if you know the dates and so forth you
should already have an immigration record, otherwise one can never be
sure. There are plenty of tales about such and such a person being an
immigrant to Mexico when in reality they are as Mexican as
tortillas... i.e. most of the Altos families have documented
genealogies in Mexico goin back to the 1500s despite claims to other
ancestry.

2006/9/10, corrine@ardoin.us :
> Hi,
>
> I have a research question about the following information. I wanted to
> know if anyone knows whether this is true or not. "Mexican customs and
> passenger lists do not begin until 1903, except for documents relating to
> the expulsion of Spaniards during the period 1820-1850." Also, "all persons
> traveling to New Spain had to be cleared by the Casa de la Contratacion in
> Seville."
>
> The reason I am looking into passenger lists at this time is because I am
> also researching my Cabral/Figueroa line, which almost immediately takes me
> to their point of immigration. My great-grandfather Alberto Martin Del
> Campo married a woman named Francisca Cabral Gonzalez, a first-generation
> born Mexican, whose mother and father immigrated to Mexico, Pioquinta
> Gonzalez Figueroa of nobility from Madrid, Spain and Benigno Cabral, a
> merchant sailor from Portugal. They eloped, sailing out of Seville,
> possibly the 1850's, and got married in Zacatecas against Pioquinta's family
> wishes. So, if the customs and passenger lists did not begin until 1903,
> does this mean I won't find a record of their immigration?
>
> BTW, someone placed on the IGI two people with these same names as having
> been born in Guadalajara, Benigno Cabral and Pioquinta Gonzalez. If they
> are the same people as my ancestors, then I think they're wrong, because
> they were not born in Mexico. They didn't cite their source for that
> information, however.
>
> Corrine Ardoin
>
>