I found a couple of really good websites. The first is
http://www.guadalajara.net/html/templos/14.shtml and it is a history of the
Santuario de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe Catholic Church in Guadalajara,
built in the 1700's. It has a photo of it, too, which I really liked,
because my ancestors, Martin del Campos and Robles attended this church,
also married there, baptized children there, etc. It is all in Spanish, the
photos are wonderful. The other site is about the Guadalajara Censuses
Project, an article called "Guadalajara in 1821: Origins of the Cuartel
System." That website address is
http://www.fsu.edu/~guadalaj/english/guadalajara_history/guadtour.htm and it
gives an explanation about how Guadalajara was designed, which helped me a
lot, in addition to learning more about the city, to understand how to order
microfilms for ancestors who were born, etc. there. For example, not
knowing which section of the city they lived in, I wouldn't know, therefore,
which office their records I'd need would have originated. Someone had
mentioned this to me previously, but until I read about it myself, I didn't
know what they were talking about. So, I had learned from this webite that,
though my grandmother and her family lived outside of Guadalajara proper,
near Zapopan, which is outside the Guadalajara municipio boundary today, 100
years ago the boundary extended further out, so I still would order
microfilm of the Zapopan municipio, though of the particular office of the
section where they lived, which might have then been in the Guadalajara
municipio. At first, I just went by the year, not paying any attention to
the offices at the head of the microfilm lists, so I accidently ordered a
microfilm for births of the right year, but from the wrong office. So, I
tried again and ordered Zapopan Nacimientos 1903-jun 1908 no. 1951122 for my
grandmother's birth record. I have been waiting several weeks for this and
asked at our FHC what was taking so long and they said that there was
problems at "the vault," and my films were backordered, so I am still
waiting. Hopefully, this will finally be the right one. I definitely urge
anyone who is starting out their research in the Guadalajara area to read up
on their history of the city and try and understand the way records were
kept.

Corrine Ardoin