I have hit the proverbial brick wall on researching the surname Aguayo from the present back to the late 1700s in Aguascalientes. So I decided to try to locate the first Aguayos who came to the New World during the Conquest and work forward from them to see if their was a connection with my research working back. In September 2007, my wife and I visited Cantabria, Spain where legend has the Aguayo surname beginning. Allegedly there were three Goth brothers who participated in the reconquest of Spain during the 12th and 13th centuries. The family gave their name to the region of Aguayo and to three villages -- Santa Olallya de Aguayo, Santa Maria de Aguayo, and San Miguel de Aguayo. We visited all three villages, asked questions about the history of the region, and about the surname. The present villagers knew little about the surname, but we met Manuel Garcia Alonso, who has a home in San Miguel de Aguayo and is a professor at a university in Santander. Alonso has written Aguayo y los Aguayos, an ethnographic and historical study of the region. According to Alonso and other sources, the Aguayos were gone from the region by the 15th century. They continued fighting in the reconquest around Cordoba, Saenz, and Ejica. For their service to the various kings, they received titles and a coat of arms. This coat of arms is still visible on a Casa Fuerte in San Miguel de Aguayo where they apparently retained some ties to the area.
Three Aguayo brothers from Portillo, Spain are listed in the Indice Geobiographico de Pobladores de America. Lorenzo de Aguayo apparently was a member of the Panfilo de Narvaez expedition sent to arrest Cortez in Mexico in 1521. Cortez succeeded in subduing the Narvaez party and getting them to join him in the conquest of Mexico. Lorenzo Aguayo died in that campaign. Diego de Aguayo died in the Cristobal de Olid expedition to Honduras in 1532. Antonio de Aguayo campaigned with Nunez de Guzman in Nuevo Galicia in 1542 and received small encomiendas around Purificacion. His descendants are listed up to the early 1700s in Vasquez y Frias, Genealogia de Nochistlan Antiguo Reino de la Nueva Galicia en el Siglo XVII Segun sus Archivos Parroquiales.
I would greatly appreciate information anyone might have about these Aguayos. My hope is that their lineage will connect to mine somewhere in the mid-1700s.