Debra,

The ultimate authority on the Spanish languange is the Real Academia
Española. They have an online dictionary that can be accessed at
http://rae.es/rae.html

The definition that pertains to the marriage record is
*1. * f. Mujer que no ha conocido varón.

A woman that has not known a man. In other words a virgin.

The following site was provided to you in a different response and is also
a good reference http://www.somosprimos.com/spanishterms/spanishterms.htm

Días Festivos -
In todays Spanish dias festivos are Holidays. However, it obviously had a
different meaning in previous centuries. Maybe it meant weekend days.
However, it was not three days of festivities. They were three days in
which the announcement that the marriage was going to take place and if
anyone had any information that the wedding shouldn't take place they could
provide that information to the church. The provisions for marriage under
the Council of Trent were also read to the bride and groom and to the three
witnesses the bride and groom had to provide for the marriage license.
There are separate volumes that have the testimonies from the bride, groom,
and witnesses in called Información Matrimonial.

Spanish Writing and Sirilda -
The writing styles have changed over the centuries. At one time the
lowercase r was written in a way that looked like an x. That is what
happened with Sirilda. Look at all of the other words in the same document
that have a lowercase r such as Parroquial, Marzo, cura, Carrillo, Pedro,
Sirilda, Marques, dieron, etc all look like Paxxoquial, Maxzo, cuxa,
Caxxillo, Pedxo, Sixilda, Maxques, diexon, etc.

In order to read these documents the letters from other known words need to
be looked in order to know which letters are in the words you are trying to
transcribe.

Saludos
Armando

On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 12:26 PM, wrote:

> Thank you Adrian for writing out what the document says.
>
> I am attempting to translate who Sixilda/Sirilad/Cirilia Santos is
> according to the words:
> Española doncella de dicho rancho when I go into different translation
> programs it varies
>
> The spanish maid of the house-meaning she is spanish and works at the house
>
> The spanish maiden of the house-meaning she is the spanish maiden of the
> house
>
> The maid of the spanish household-she only works at the house and is not
> of spanish descent
> They had three days of festivities the 6th, 13th and 20th. That seems to
> be quite a celebration.
>
> I realize this is a formal document. I did not grow up with formal
> spanish speaking/writing skills. My first excitement with actually finding
> the names has now grown while attempting to read the documents and finding
> out the areas where they lived within Aguascalientes. It is like a mystery
> novel. Plus decoding the notes made by the scribe, Mestizo, Indio or
> Espanol and others that I have yet to understand.
> Is there a decoding 101 out there for the Mexican Documents.
>
> With many thanks to all of you who have been working on these documents
> and on this website. I am so grateful to have been able to trace back 7
> generations so far, I didn't think that I would find that many.
>
> Debra Perez