Name Variations

One thing that can really trip you up, when researching your family history, is all the name variations you'll come across in New Mexico's vital records.

* Many of the names are spelled phonetically - you'll have to keep in mind the distinction in Mexican Spanish vs. Spain Spanish because you'll likely encounter the Spain Spanish lisp in the phonetic spelling of names (for example: Catalina vs. Cathalina)

* There are differences in how the Spanish Alphabet was written vs. the English Alphabet -  some indexes that have kindly translated the records won't always catch them, so if you don't keep this in mind while flipping through an index for your ancestors records, you could be looking for them on the wrong page (for example: an "s" often looks like a "z" and an "r" often looks like an "x")

* In Old Spanish  you'll often see the "b" and "v" interchanged (for example: "Chavez" and "Chabez"). My Grandmother always interchanged these letters and having grown up in her home, I've always done it myself (although I'm not fluent in Spanish and grew up in California). My Grandmothers sister was named Genoveva, we called her "Veva" or "Veba" for short. There's never been any consistency in pronouncing it either way - I think most of the family has referred to her both ways. I'm not really conscious of how I'm saying it until the words leaves my mouth but I often say "Veba" or "Beba".

You'll notice that on each Individual Profile page, I'm providing you with the name variations I'm coming across in the records. This is to make it easier for you, if you're conducting your own family history research because if you aren't searching every name variation, often times you won't be able to locate your ancestor in the records and indexes. You'll also want to keep this in mind if you have an online subscription to Ancestry.com or other online databases because you won't always see the variations come up in your "Hints".

I'm going down the index of my family tree database, to give you some of the name variations that I often see in our family records. When I post these profiles, you will be provided with each source:

Abeyta, Abeita, Beitia, Beytia

Archibeque, Archiveque, L'Archiveque

Baca, Vaca

Cerda, Zerda

Chaves, Chavez, Chabes, Chabez

de Herrera, de Errera,  de Erera (de Exexa), Herrera

Dominguez, Domingues

Espinosa, Espinoza

Esquivel, Esquibel

Garcia, Garzia, Garsia

Gomez, Gomes

Gonzales, Gonzalez

Hinojosa, Inojosa, Inoso, Ynojosa, Ynojos

Hurtado, Urtado

Leyva, Leyba

Lopes, Lopez

Martin, Martinez, Martines

Miera, Myera

Montoya, Montolla

Olague, Olagues, Aulagi, Ulagi, Lagues, Olaque

Roybal, Riobal, Ruibal

Sisneros, Zisneros, Cisneros

Trugillo, Trujillo, Truxillo

Tafoya, Tafolla

Ulibarri, Ulibari, Ulivvarri, Ulivari, Ulivarri, Urrivarri, Urivari, Ribali, Ruibali, Ruibal, Ruivali, Ruival, Uribali (and more)

Valdes, Valdez


***All the name variations I've come across in our family lines aren't in my index because I haven't  entered all my research into it yet. I also put a lot of that information in my notes section of my family tree, so keep in mind that this isn't a comprehensive list

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I can't find the website address for my go-to Spanish Alphabet guide I use the most, but this website I'm posting below, has a lot of great resources on extracting information from old records that are written in various languages. 

https://script.byu.edu/Pages/home.aspx


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I had a great resource on name variations, but I can't locate it right now. When I find it I'll post it here.






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