Hola prim@s,

Indexing the “lost” archives provided by Mary Lou (San Matias Pinos 1613-1647), you can imagine that I’ve become pretty familiar with many of the first generation of residents in Sierra de Pinos - the family groups, the haciendas which they owned or on which they lived (by the way, I’ve been working on an ebook of all of these families, which I hope to share before the end of this year).
As some of you may have noticed, the marriages and baptisms of some of these early residents appear in Santa Maria de los Lagos, Jalisco, on Roll 221879 - Bautismos, confirmaciones, matrimonios, defunciones 1607-1728.
While going through this roll, I’d see baptisms of criados and slaves of Capitan Gabriel Ortiz de Fuenmayor, who owned Espiritu Santo in Pinos; he and his wife, Doña Ysabel Perez, appear as padrinos for some; I’d see the marriage of his successor as owner of Espiritu Santo, Don Juan Ramos de la Vega, to Juana de la Peña, daughter of Juan Perez de Alanis and Ysabel de Salas (owners of the Hacienda de Santa Ana in Pinos), and the baptisms of their children, as well as of their criados and slaves.
I always thought it odd that residents of Pinos would travel all the way to Lagos to marry or baptize their children - especially criados and slaves. Were they that mobile? Or, maybe these hacendados owned labores or ranchos in Lagos? Perplexed, I left it at that.
But as I was recently reviewing the images on this roll, starting at img150, I began to really notice how a lot of the people marrying or baptizing children, lived on either Espiritu Santo or Santa Ana. And then I noticed, on img230, confirmations performed on Espiritu Santo, on 18 Jun 1634; followed on img233, by a “Libro de Visitas” to “la yglesia del Agua del Spiritu Santo hacienda que es del Capitan Gabriel Hortiz,” which documents visits by the bishops of Guadalajara to that chapel, from 1612 to 1667. It’s followed by burials on the same hacienda.
And then it dawned on me: this is an entire book of baptisms, marriages, confirmations, visitas and burials that took place in Sierra de Pinos! They didn’t happen in Lagos! This book is in the wrong place! Either it was mistakenly transported to Lagos, or it’s a duplicate of a book that still exist in San Matias, Pinos!
Whatever the case, starting at img150-right, and through img245-left, is an entire book of holy sacraments that were performed in the chapel of the Hacienda del Espiritu Santo, in Sierra de Pinos, from 1606 to 1639.

Here are my notes and observations in regards:

- Though these events coincide with those that I indexed (1613-1647), these are not duplicates: this is an entirely different book.
- Whoever indexed this roll, only indexed the baptisms and marriages, but not the confirmations nor burials (which appear to be of criados, rather than of any of the principal families).
- Though some baptisms and marriages of the principal Spanish families appear, the majority of the records are for “castas” - mestizos, mulatos, negros and indios, who were either criados or slaves on the haciendas. What can be taken from this? Some are identified as “criados de so-and-so” or “esclavos de so-and-so,” so at least you can identify who worked for your ancestor (or who your ancestor worked for), as well as locate that ancestor. Also, many members of the principal families appear as padrinos or testigos; I’m one who likes to keep track of every detail about my people, so I log all of these events into their timelines.

In closing, even though these records are going to be found in Santa Maria de los Lagos, for accuracy’s sake, you might want to make note that these events occurred in Sierra de Pinos, Zacatecas: if your ancestor’s baptism appears among these pages, then they were likely born on Espiritu Santo, Santa Ana, or on another nearby hacienda.

I hope you’re all well!
Saludos!
Manny Díez Hermosillo