Mary:

About getting around in Mexico... as someone noted earlier, the bus
system is very good in Mexico.. nothing like Greyhound.  There are
luxury buses that are almost always on schedule and do non-stop
trajectories between major cities.  You should be able to get from
Mexico City to Guanajuato without any problems on such a bus.  I have
rented cars before and driven and believe me I enjoyed the buses much
more.

As far as maps, the Secretaria de Communicaciones y Transporte has
very detailed up-to-date road maps of every state in Mexico:

http://dgp.sct.gob.mx/index.php?id=440

You can also order a Guia Roji, which is the premiere road atlas of
Mexico and is updated annually as well.

http://www.randmcnally.com/rmc/store/strProductDetail.jsp?
prod_id=9706214186

The SCT map can be searched in Adobe Reader.  From what I can tell,
there are a number of San Felipes in Guanajuato. 

Can someone who has looked at films of parrish books listing burials 
tell me how extensive the information listed in these books is?  Does 
it list parents, survivors of the deceased?  I have two particular 
issues... one where I cannot connect an ancestor (Marcos LEMUS m. Maria 
Barbara YBARRA) to any one of his potential parents (children of a 
Felipe LEMUS that was the grantee of the land where Marcos lived, his 
children were born, etc.).  I cannot find a marriage or birth record 
for him...

The other is that baptismal and marriage records for Jerez, Zacatecas 
seem to be missing for the crucial period at the end of the 17th and 
beginning of the 18th century when many families moved from there to 
Totatiche, Jalisco... so I am hoping that death records will make the 
connection.

Mary:

About getting around in Mexico... as someone noted earlier, the bus
system is very good in Mexico.. nothing like Greyhound.  There are
luxury buses that are almost always on schedule and do non-stop
trajectories between major cities.  You should be able to get from
Mexico City to Guanajuato without any problems on such a bus.  I have
rented cars before and driven and believe me I enjoyed the buses much
more.

As far as maps, the Secretaria de Communicaciones y Transporte has
very detailed up-to-date road maps of every state in Mexico:

http://dgp.sct.gob.mx/index.php?id=440

You can also order a Guia Roji, which

Just thought I would share my "experience" of riding the bus in Mexico.
This was in 1996. I had gone to Mexico around Holy Week to visit my 
youngest son who was in a study abroad program. Since his spring break 
coincided with Holy Week we decided to try to visit Zacatecas (I had 
previously contacted some distant cousins about the possibility of 
meeting them). According to the schedule the trip was to take 8 hours, 
so we decided to take the overnight bus, scheduled to arrive at about 6 
AM. It was a comfortable ride, but we fell asleep - slept through our 
stop (Zacatecas city)- went on two more stops (about 45 min.) then had 
to wait over an hour to catch a bus back to Zacatecas. We didn't dare 
wander away from the bus stop for fear of missing the bus back. We made 
it back OK, 'though the cousins were worried that we had not arrived at 
the appointed time.
The return trip to Mexico City was w/o incident.
 
Natalie Coleman in VA
PS - we had a lovely visit to the city - so much

Hope:

The marriage records usually have the names of parents listed and 
your grandmother's marriage with Epifanio is listed in IGI and you 
can order the film from your local family history center to view the 
full record and see the parent listing.  One of our members, Deena 
Ortiz has this film at her local FHC.

ANCELMA RODRIGUEZ  
  Female   Family 
Marriages: 
  Spouse:  EPIFANIO RAMIREZ  Family 
  Marriage:  04 MAR 1878   Nochistlan, Zacatecas, Mexico 
Source Information: 
 Batch No.:  Dates:       Source Call No.:  Type:  
 M606265     1874 - 1880  0226734           Film 


You should also know that there is a very good and detailed genealogy 
of the oldest settlers in Nochistlan, so if your gggrandmother's 
family is originally from there, you should have a great resource to 
go back pretty far.

Genealogía de Nochistlán, antiguo reino de la Nueva Galicia en el 
siglo XVII según sus archivos parroquiales 
Authors Vázquez y Rodríguez de Frías, José Luis (Main Author) 

Notes

Hello or Holla to everyone,
My name is Hope Carmona Wilson and I am looking for information on my 
gg parents from Mexico. Like so many of us who are American by birth 
and who are searching for history of our past family memebers from 
Mexico,it seems to be like looking for a needle in a hay stack.I am 
very happy to have found you all.The information I am researching is 
for my maternal ggg mother.
Her name was Anselma Rodriguez, born 1860 in Nochitzlan, Zacatecas, 
Mexico.She died and was buried in Teocaltiche,Jalisco,Mexico date?? She 
married Epifanio Ramirez,born 1850(about)His parents were Rogelio 
Ramirez & Estanisla Duran. No other information known. Via FamilyTree 
DNA testing I learned I belong to the HVR1 B GROUP. This is a native 
american group which makes sence since back then, there was no United 
States.
As I learn more information I will be happy to help others in thier 
search.
Again, I am very happy to be part of this group.
Hope aka Esperanza

Mary:

About getting around in Mexico... as someone noted earlier, the bus 
system is very good in Mexico.. nothing like Greyhound.  There are 
luxury buses that are almost always on schedule and do non-stop 
trajectories between major cities.  You should be able to get from 
Mexico City to Guanajuato without any problems on such a bus.  I have 
rented cars before and driven and believe me I enjoyed the buses much 
more.

As far as maps, the Secretaria de Communicaciones y Transporte has 
very detailed up-to-date road maps of every state in Mexico:

http://dgp.sct.gob.mx/index.php?id=440

You can also order a Guia Roji, which is the premiere road atlas of 
Mexico and is updated annually as well.

http://www.randmcnally.com/rmc/store/strProductDetail.jsp?
prod_id=9706214186

The SCT map can be searched in Adobe Reader.  From what I can tell, 
there are a number of San Felipes in Guanajuato.  The largest city by 
the name is at the intersection of Highways 51 and 37 in the northern 
part