Hello Arturo and others who shared ideas,
Blas was married to Maria Zubiate Cisneros somewhere in Mexico but I'm not sure where. Maria was around 7 years younger than he was and was from Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua. I even have her parent's names which I got from her brother's SSI record.
I don't know how they met but I suspect that Blas was a miner in Zacatecas first, he then met his wife Maria maybe through their families involvement in mining (workers), they had their first 5 children in Chihuahua (not 100% sure), and then my grandfather Lorenzo Cisneros Gutierrez was the last child born in Sierra Mojada Coahuila in 1903. They came to the U.S., by train (according to Lorenzo's naturalization papers) around 1906.
Is it possible that some families never baptised their children because they were moving from local to local wherever there was work??
I should probably first check the Sierra Mojada Coahuila Civil Registry to see if they have Lorenzo's civil birth record. Maybe that will have more info on his parents Blas and Maria.
It seemed that because Blas was a miner, he had to go where the work was taking along his family on the train with him. Sierra Mojada in Coahuila was a mining town from what I have read, can't find a local parish though, I'll search some more.
Thanks Arturo for helping me think this through. I'll go back and plan my path forward on the research. I like a new Genealogy research challenge!
Yolanda
Jalisco/Zacatecas
----- Original Message ----
From: arturoramos
To: research@lists.nuestrosranchos.org
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 8:30:04 AM
Subject: [Nuestros Ranchos] Gutierrez in Zacatecas (La Sauceda)
Yolanda:
If you have credible evidence that Blas Gutierrez was born in La Sauceda de la Borda, Zacatecas, then you should start by identifying what church he might have been baptized in. La Sauceda used to be a municipality in Zacatecas (look at the Cubas Diccionario Geografico from the links section of the site and look up simply "Sauceda"). There is no such municipality now, though from my meager research it looks like La Sauceda would now be part of Veta Grande.
If you look in the familysearch.org website and look up Sauceda de la Borda, you will note that the local parish is San Juan Bautista and that they have the following films for the region:
Bautismos de hijos legítimos 1861-1862, 1867- 1869, 1876-1884
Bautismos de hijos legítimos 1884-1896
Bautismos de hijos legítimos 1896-1917
Información matrimonial 1869-1871, 1877-1880
Información matrimonial 1880-1884
Información matrimonial 1884-1889
Información matrimonial 1890-1900
That means that the parrish did not exist when your ancestor was born in 1844 and he would have had to been baptized in a nearby town's parrish... perhaps Panuco or Vetagrande?
Vetagrande's records begin in 1756 but they are missing baptism records for the 1840 and 1850s...
Panuco's records begin even earlier in 1684, but they are likewise missing baptism records for most of the 1840s...
I would suspect that your ancestor was in one of those two church's baptism records but they are now lost or destroyed and that is why you are having so much trouble finding him. Do you know if he was married in Mexico or the United States?
Blas is a full name, not a nickname. I also have an ancestor named Blas Gutierrez:
http://www.ramosfamily.org/nextgen/getperson.php?personID=I414
Baptisms, Civil Records and Sierra Mojada
Yolanda:
It is highly unlikely that people did not baptize their children, even if they were poor, even if they had to go far to the church and even if they moved around a lot. Until the civil registry was instituted, it was the only legal recordation of someone's birth and people in Mexico were very devout. I am always amazed when I see a baptism of a four or five day old child from the 1700s who was baptized 20 or 30 miles from the rancho where he was born.
Sierra Mojada was a municipality in the district of Monclava, Coahuila according to Cuba's Diccionario Geografico. The town was founded in 1879 due to the discovery of silver and copper deposits in the area. At the time of Cuba's books publication the population was 1879 inhabitants... which is sizeable.
The civil registry for the year that your gradfather was born exists on film:
Nacimientos 1901-1906 FHL INTL Film 1101607 and there is a great possibility it lists his grandparents' names.
Check out this link. I think that if you can get in touch with this man, he may be able to help you find records. I have a suspicion that the Family History Library doesn't have church records for the area, but that does not mean they do not exist. There is definitely a church in the town and the population exploded in the 1890s to over 10,000 people... they could not have gone without a church with that population:
http://www.coahuila.gob.mx/conozca/hub.php/cronistas-coahuilenses/sierr…