Hi Carlos

I had also seen the reference to Tarimbaro you refer, and that it why i struggled to read the oldest records I could find from Morelia. There is surely more information there than I could decipher. The little I found I have presented in NR, where i recognized the same don Fernando sotelo and the name tarimbaro. We know from The Encomendero's of New Spain that Fernando took over as encomendero of Ecatepec in 1568 when his father Diego Arias Sotelo had to go into exile. About Tarimbaro i do not know, except that the reference to it which i found mentions something about it having been sold. You can take a look at the posts on it, with link to the image, here:

http://www.nuestrosranchos.org/node/21270 LINK TO THE THREAD ABOUT TARIMBARO

The story of the Sotelo Family i find dramatic, think of the distances they covered, from spain to Mexico to peru and back and forth. I have a theory or really just speculation that Maria Manual, once Diego was exiled in 1568, would have moved in with her brother in Mexico City and taken all the children with her, after all, Diego could not have been more than 10 years old at that time. Clearly at some point Diego and Cristobal were sent to live in Spain for a while, as the sons of the upper class sometimes were. Petronila could have been married off at an early age, at which point she would have recieved a dowry, which could explain why she was not mentioned in the settelment of her mother's estate in 1593.I have been asking myself, who would have arranged her marriage, and why was it to Martin Gabay de Navarro, apparently a Basque (gabay is a Basque surname....)??? Perhaps it was her stepmothers brother the tesorero, or perhaps her father who lived longer than I thought, into the 1580's.

The question remains, it is more likely her name will turn up in a record from Morelia, or in one from Mexico City? A woman of her social status would likely turn up as a padrina somewhere... Perhaps she too lived in spain for a while - did the whole family follow Diego as far at Spain, perhaps becoming part of Maria Manuels parents' household?

Petronila is the weak link, since we have no primary source on who her parents are. I hope still that Don Guillermos work on the Sotelo Moctezuma family will be published, but that may never happen. In the meantime, I feel that we already have put together a clearer picture of the fate of Diego Arias Sotelo's Family than we had before, and that is satisfying and encouraging. I hope that one other issue gets solved - the parentage of Francisco Sotelo of Aguascalientes, married to Clara de Jaen. Finding that (even if it turns out he was not a descendant of Diego Arias Sotelo and Leonor Valderrama Moctezuma) would also be a significant contribution to the NR forum as they have lots of descendants.

Regards
Denise