okay I thought maybe you had a bit of "oral history" or some stories
that led you to believe that Zacatecas was your location. It's going to
take some real digging to work from the Zacatecas side AND the NL side
trying to match them up. Deeper than I know how to investigate without
investing tons of time. But investigations like that sometimes do work
out if you have evidence that the Saldivar Name originated in Mexico
from Zacatecas (I don't know but just speculating). Maybe some research
on the Name. Here is some information you can try to access at this site:

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/ZZ/fza7_print.html
or http://www.smu.edu/swcenter/zald%C3%ADvar.htm

*ZALDÍVAR, VICENTE DE* (ca. 1573-?). Vicente de Zaldívar, the younger,
Spanish explorer and soldier, was probably born in Zacatecas, a mining
town on the frontier of northern Mexico, about 1573. He and Juan de
Zaldívar^qv were sons of Vicente de Zaldívar, the elder, and Magdalena
de Mendoza y Salazar. Through a series of marriages, the Zaldívar and
Oñate families of Zacatecas had become so intricately related that Juan
de Oñate,^qv the future colonizer of New Mexico, was both uncle and
second cousin to the Zaldívar brothers, and he later became the
father-in-law of Vicente. In September 1595 Juan de Oñate received a
royal contract to colonize New Mexico, and he began immediately to
recruit officers and men. He enlisted his young kinsmen in his command.
Vicente de Zaldívar received the position of /sargento mayor/, a rank
below that of his brother, Juan. Through no fault of Oñate's, final
approval of his contract by the king's agent did not come until early
1598. The expedition's point of departure was the frontier town of Santa
Bárbara, situated near the headwaters of the Río Conchos in southern
Chihuahua. On previous occasions Spaniards en route to New Mexico had
followed the Conchos to its confluence with the Rio Grande and then
proceeded upstream along the course of the larger river to the province.
This circuitous route had the advantage of ample water along the way.
But Oñate, made impatient by delays, sought a shortcut and ordered a
reconnaissance to that end by Vicente de Zaldívar. Zaldívar, at the head
of a small party, spent nearly a month in the field, but he returned
with knowledge of a more direct route, which afforded some water,
through formidable sand dunes. Following the new trail blazed by
Zaldívar, the full expedition reached "El Paso," the ford in the Rio
Grande, on May 4, 1598. It then continued along the course of the river
to New Mexico.

By the fall of 1598 Spanish settlers in New Mexico had become sorely
disappointed by the lack of readily exploitable wealth. Zaldívar, with
apparent talent for pathfinding, was dispatched to reconnoiter the
buffalo plains of eastern New Mexico and western Texas. It seems
unlikely, however, that he reached the present borders of Texas. Shortly
after his return with ample supplies of buffalo jerky, Juan de Zaldívar
was killed in an Indian revolt atop the great rock at Acoma. Oñate
promoted Vicente to his deceased brother's position of /maestre de
campo/ and ordered him to subdue the Acomas. In January 1599 Vicente de
Zaldívar crushed the Acoma revolt. He later participated in the trial
and drastic punishment of surviving Acomas. After his command ended in
New Mexico Zaldívar returned to Zacatecas, where before 1620 he married
Juan de Oñate's daughter, María de Oñate. They had at least one son. In
1626 Zaldívar was admitted to the prestigious military order of
Santiago. He prospered for some years in the silver mine business but
then suffered financial losses in the 1630s. The circumstances of his
death are not known, but he was deceased by 1650.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Herbert Eugene Bolton, ed., /Spanish Exploration in the
Southwest, 1542-1706/ (New York: Scribner, 1908; rpt., New York: Barnes
and Noble, 1959). Donald E. Chipman, "The Oñate-Moctezuma-Zaldívar
Families of Northern New Spain," /New Mexico Historical Review/ 52
(October 1977). George P. Hammond and Agapito Rey, eds., /Don Juan de
Oñate: Colonizer of New Mexico, 1595-1628/ (Santa Fe: Patalacio, 1927;
rpt., Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1953). Gaspar Pérez
de Villagrá, /Historia de la Nueva México/, 1610; trans. Gilberto
Espinosa as /A History of New Mexico/ (Los Angeles: Quivira Society,
1933; rpt., Chicago: Rio Grande Press, 1962). Marc Simmons, /The Last
Conquistador: Juan de Oñate and the Settling of the Far Southwest/
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991).

/Donald E. Chipman/

*The following, adapted from the /Chicago Manual of Style/, 15th
edition, is the preferred citation for this article.*

/Handbook of Texas Online/, s.v. ","
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/ZZ/fza7.html
(accessed November 15, 2006).

(NOTE: "s.v." stands for sub verbo, "under the word.")

I'm not sure where they are getting this information. . .maybe others
would know if that is where the name originated from, not sure:

*http://www.houseofnames.com/xq/asp.c/qx/zaldivar-coat-arms.htm*

The surname Zaldivar comes from the place name Saldaña, which is located
in Leon.

Spelling variations include: Saldaña, Saldana, Zaldaña, Zaldana and others.

First found in the former Kingdom of Leon.

Some of the first settlers of this name or some of its variants were:
Gregorio de Saldana and Francisco de Saldana, who arrived in 1517.
Hipolito de Saldana arrived in Spanish America in 1534. Juan de Saldana
settled in Peru in 1560.

(Above is a small excerpt from our 1800 word history)

Copyright © 2000 - 2006 Swyrich Corporation, all rights reserved

joseph

===================

Joseph Puentes
http://H2Opodcast.com (Environment Podcast)
http://NuestraFamiliaUnida.com (Latin American History)

Welester wrote:
> Greetings and Salutations to all ,
>
> My name is Welester G. Alvarado and I hail from Los Angeles , California now living in Monterrey , Mexico . I came here almost six yrs. ago to spend one year looking for family and to continue my family search .
>
> My family names on my fathers' side consist of : Alvarado , Almaguer , Trevino , Garza , Saldivar , Tamez and a few others . At the moment Im looking for a connection between my gggrandmothers side .
>
> Her name was Maria Quirina Saldivar Gomez , born in Villa de Santiago , N.L. Her parents were Juan Jose Saldivar from Saltillo , Coahuila .
>
> >From there I don't have anymore info . I found in some of John Inclans family names a Vicente Zaldivar from Zacatecas and further reading I found several Saldivars in Monterrey . So, Im trying to find the connecting point between the families in Zacatecas to the families in Monterrey or Villa de Santiago .
>
> I did find some Saldivars in the book " INDEX TO THE MARRIAGE INVESTIGATIONS OF THE DIOCES OF GUADALAJARA . Agustin Saldivar , Joseph Antonio Saldivar , Joseph Gregorio Saldivar and a few others . All of which ended up in Monterrey .
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated .
>
> Welester