Mexico genealogy research using registro civil

Someone who is trying to find family in Mexico recently asked how to access the registro civil in Mexico. The goal for most of my readers is to simply find and be united/reunited with family in Mexico or friends they have lost touch with. Most of my readers aren't really looking to do long term Mexico genealogy research on genealogy web sites or going to genealogy societies and meetings.

But for you readers who are genealogists and who have to find this relative or friend so you can start your Mexico genealogy research, you may have thought about tapping into the registro civil, the government agency that stores the government documents of the residents in their town.

So why would using the registro civil be an issue? It sounds simple. Just call them up or better yet go to their web site, tell them who you want to find, give them your credit card information (there is a charge), sit back and wait for the document to come in the mail. The hard truth is that we can only wish it worked this way, and it doesn't.

Check back next week as we continue to address this issue in Registro civil: Not easy Mexico genealogy research.

Saludos,




Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Find Relatives In Mexico

There are five top challenges stopping people from finding someone living in Mexico? Subscribe to get our FREE Special Report and find out what those challenges are.

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Finding Someone In Mexico - Misspelling Mexican Cities

Another challenge to finding someone living in Mexico is with the spelling of the names of Mexican cities. You’ll need to make sure you are not misspelling the city name as this small mistake will limit your search. It’s important to know with certainty, the city and state of the person you are looking for. One person was trying to find the city of Colipa. However, the name of the city was Copila. Some of the letters were changed around. Maybe it is spelled with an “o” instead of an “a” or it has two “l’s” when it should be a “t”. Be sure that you are clear on the city and the state and their correct spellings.

Let’s say that you have discovered the complete name of the person you want to find and you have verified to the best of your ability the city and state where this person is now living in Mexico. You are now at the door and ready to enter to find this person. Now where do you go with this information? And what do you do if you have tried everything and you feel you have as much information as you will ever have, but it’s not quite enough?

Both situations lead us to the final challenge #5 . . . be sure to read next week's blog.


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Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Family & Friends Found!


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Finding Someone In Mexico - What If They Are Female?

What if the person you are looking for is a female in Mexico? I want you to know up front that it will be more challenging. Most females are going to be living with their father, an uncle or another male relative until they are married. Because of this, women will rarely have accounts, such as utilities, placed in their name. Females are not going to be paying the electricity or water bill or buying property. If the female is married, this may increase the difficulty of finding the person even more. When women marry, they usually drop their maiden name (the second name). They will then retain their father’s last name but they will be addressed by the last name of their husband’s father. This is quite similar to how women change their names when they get married in the U.S.

If you do not know the city and state and do not know who she has married, then the chances of finding her are very slim but not impossible. You can still search for this person by locating her relatives. A point to keep in mind is that your success in finding someone depends on the information you have and where you will be using it.

Next week . . . Getting the correct spelling.

What are the five top challenges stopping people from finding someone living in Mexico? Subscribe to get our FREE Special Report and we'll tell you!


Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Family & Friends Found!


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Connecting With Someone In Mexico - Sorting Through Your Information

If you've been following these blog posts (and I hope you have), you now know what to do and what you need to find someone living in Mexico.

You may be wondering how to sort through the information that you have. You may have found some great information but you just do not know what to do with it. We’ll start by putting the information into context. You may be able to move ahead with the information you presently have or you may need to organize your information and fill in the gaps.

Let’s say that you talked to all of the relatives that you can think of and you came across a last name. Maybe you do not have the second last name, but you know the city and state where they were born. Here’s how to begin.

There are thirty one states in Mexico. Just as in the United States, or any other country, there are little towns and villages and then there are big cities. If you have someone you believe is living in Mexico City and you only have one surname and it is Martinez, your chances of finding this person are remote to impossible. Mexico City is one of the largest cities in the world. Martinez is the fourth most popular Spanish name. There are thousands of people in Mexico City with the surname of Martinez. It would be virtually impossible to find someone with just the surname Martinez. That is why it is so important to have both last names.

On the other hand, if you have only one surname but it’s a name such as Alvarado and they are living in a small town, you could have success in finding them without having more information. Alvarado is not nearly as popular a name as Martinez. If you have a small town, it’s often true that anyone with the same last name is probably a relative. Many times I have located people with the same surname that turned out to be a relative of who I was looking for. So even if you don’t have a complete name, if the person is living in a small town or rural area, you may be able to use your information right now to find this person.

Next week . . . what if the person is a female?

There are five top challenges stopping people from finding someone living in Mexico? Subscribe to get our FREE Special Report and find out what those challenges are.


Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Family & Friends Found!


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Press Release: Unique Web Site Connects Hispanics to Family in Mexico

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Richard Villasana
Tel: (619) 379-7862
E-mail: rvillasana@FindingRelativesInMexico.com
Website: http://www.FindingRelativesInMexico.com

Unique Web Site Connects Hispanics to Family in Mexico

CHULA VISTA, CA (October 2007) – Where there once was despair and disappointment, there is now help and hope thanks to a unique new Web site specially created to reunite families and friends from north and south of the Border. The Web site, www.FindRelativesInMexico.com is the labor of love of nationally recognized Hispanic businessman Richard Villasana who developed the site because he saw that many Hispanic families had become separated from their families in Mexico. Hispanics were abandoned with no experienced organization able to locate their families in Mexico.

Many foster agencies and child services from around the country have contacted Villasana as well as attorneys for child custody cases when the case involves a parent living in Mexico. His company has helped over 3,000 clients find mothers, birth fathers and other relatives in Mexico.

Villasana is a professional speaker whose recent presentation on Mexico Family History helped kick off Hispanic Heritage Month in Austin, Texas and was a guest speaker at the Latino Film Festival earlier this year in San Diego.

With Hispanic Heritage Month already halfway through (September 16 - October 15), Villasana has seen an increase in web hits of over 300% from people in Mexico coming to his new site. The site is so popular with Hispanic speaking people that Villasana will be launching a Spanish version of the site soon.

One customer claimed, "I was speechless. I dialed one of the numbers you gave me and I was talking to my son's grandmother. I've been looking for his Mexican relatives for three to four years."

Villasana has also written a book titled, The Insider's Guide to Doing Business in Mexico, and several articles including his most recent in CRM Magazine about the U.S. Hispanic market. He has also lectured in the U.S. and Mexico on international marketing and is President of The Mexico Guru. The company provides training and seminars to businesses wanting to increase sales and profits to Mexico.

Villasana is available for interviews and can be reached at (619) 379-7862; or email: rvillasana@FindRelativesInMexico.com; Web site : http://www.FindRelativesInMexico.com

Finding Someone In Mexico - A Word About Mexico Phone Numbers

A lot of people have more information than they think they do. You may only have a phone number. I can’t tell you the amount of people who had a phone number and contacted me because the number no longer worked. I was able to help these people by explaining what may have happened to cause the phone number to no longer function.

In late 2001 Mexico changed their entire telephone system to a more standard format much like telephone numbers in the U.S. or most of Europe. All but three cities now have a three-digit area code and a seven digit telephone number. Because of their large populations, Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterey now have a unique two digit area code.

So if you have a number for a relative or friend who is living in one of these three cities and that number has seven digits, you will now need the ten digit number. What the Mexican telephone company did is add a “5” to the beginning of the old seven digit numbers. If your number was previously 223-4455, it is now 5223-4455. Let’s put this together. The Mexico country code is 52, the city code for Mexico City is 55. Your number would look like this: 52 (country code) 55 (Mexico City code) 5223-4455 (new eight digit number) or 52-55-5223-4455.

The same process was applied to Guadalajara and Monterey. Guadalajara numbers were transformed to 33 (city code) and another “3” was added to the beginning of the old seven-digit numbers. For Monterrey, numbers were transformed to 81 (city code) and another “8” was added to the beginning of the old seven-digit numbers.

What is relevant for you right now is to organize your notes and focus on finding the two key pieces of information you want to have to ensure you have the best chance of finding the person you are looking for in Mexico. You want to discover the complete name of the person and the city and state where they were living and may still be living. You may have to go back to people you already talked to. Remember that now you know what information you want to discover so you can move to the next step.

Do you know there are five top challenges stopping people from finding someone living in Mexico? Subscribe to get our FREE Special Report.


Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Family & Friends Found!


Want to have revealing information on finding someone in Mexico come directly to your Inbox? Subscribe now at Find Relatives In Mexico.

How Do I Reconnect With Someone In Mexico?

By now you should be armed with plenty of information about the person you are looking for and you are now ready to hit the ground running. This post will show you what to do so you will be able to move forward faster in your search. You could, realistically, be talking to that person within the next couple of weeks.

How To Get Started Finding Someone in Mexico

Start by organizing your work. A great way to stay organized is to take notes while you are talking to people about the person you are looking for. Write down everything you’ve heard because you do not know where this information could lead you. You want to be able to remember it later.

Get organized by focusing on finding the two key pieces of information that were presented in Challenge #2. Think outside the box. Think like a detective. Where did this person go? Retrace their steps. That is how you are going to find the information you need. What else could you use to get started?

Key information on family genealogy can be found in birth records, marriage certificates, and death certificates. If you have someone’s birth certificate, you then have their complete name. You also have the complete name of the person’s parents. You have the city and state where this person was born. This is a great place to start. If you know nothing about this person, you can start your research right there. We get emails all the time from people saying that all they have is a birth certificate. They have no idea how close they are to finding the person they are looking for because they do have that birth certificate.

Marriage licenses work the same way. These will give you information on people who were witnesses including the name of the church and the presiding priest or minister.

How about a death certificate? Obviously not the death certificate of the person you are trying to find, because your focus is on people who are currently alive and living in Mexico, but if you have a death certificate of one of their parents you also now know the city and the state. It is a great starting point and an incredible source of data for doing family genealogy.

Look at documents that you might have gathered in your genealogy research. Look at old post cards. Look at letters. Where are these written from? All of those are possible sources of genealogy information that you can use to find this person.


Learn the five top challenges stopping people from finding someone living in Mexico. Subscribe to get our FREE Special Report.


Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Family & Friends Found!


Want to have revealing information on finding someone in Mexico come directly to your Inbox? Subscribe now at Find Relatives In Mexico.

Finding Someone In Mexico - Get the City and State

Another key piece of information that you need when trying to find someone living in Mexico is to have the city and the state of where they are or where they were living.

Finding out where they did live can be helpful if you do not know where they are living right now. Family genealogist know that having the city and state are two critical pieces of information needed to locate someone and learn more about them. Family genealogy research also includes looking at where a people is from to help identify other relatives who may still be living in the same city.

If someone has lived in Guadalajara and they came to the United States for, say, ten years, there is a very good possibility they may be going back to Guadalajara at some point. Also finding where they did live is very helpful because their family and friends may still be there.

Why do you need to know the city and state? If you tried to go to an Internet search engine site, maybe one that specialized in genealogy research and put in only a person’s name without the city and state you are not going to get any information. Why? Even in the United States you have to tell the site where this person is living. If you do not have that basic information, you are not going to get an answer. It is virtually impossible to locate a person if you do not have the city and the state where they are living.

Next week, we'll organize all our findings.

Do you know there are five top items you must have to find someone living in Mexico? Subscribe to get our FREE Special Report.

Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Expert on 1st 100 years of Mexico Family History


Want to have revealing information on finding someone in Mexico come directly to your Inbox? Subscribe now at Find Relatives In Mexico.

Finding Someone In Mexico - Through Story Telling

Story telling is an incredible tool to get people to tell you the information you want. It will also give you an idea of who this person was and what they were doing and may lead you to other ideas.

A great way to get information is to get a person to tell you stories using questions like, “So how did you and my father meet?” or “What did he/she like to do during the weekends?” Engaging the people that you talk to in your family and circle of friends in stories is a great way to jog their memory. Sometimes with story telling they remember something they may have otherwise forgotten.

Here is a key. Talk to every relative you have. There is always someone in every family who knows a little bit about everyone. And it does not matter if they are your third cousin or they are four times removed. They could be an ex-husband, an ex-uncle. It does not matter. You would be amazed at how much information other people in the family have about your side of the family. You may think that your immediate family should know everything about the family, but that is not always true. I urge you to go talk to every possible relative.

Maybe they talked to someone from another group, such as a priest or teacher. Go after as many leads as you can. You are going to have to interview several people to get all the facts.

Ths and next weeks post are two key pieces of information that will go far in helping with your search.

Find out what the five top challenges stopping people from finding someone living in Mexico. Subscribe to get our FREE Special Report.

Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Family & Friends Found!

Want to have revealing information on finding someone in Mexico come directly to your In box? Subscribe now at Find Relatives In Mexico.

#3 Want to find family in Mexico? What you need to get started

A challenge that people experience in trying to find someone living in Mexico is just not having enough information or not knowing where to get started gathering information. This post will give you the fundamentals you will need to gather information to find people in Mexico.

You've probably already done a lot of Mexico genealogy research. I’m sure you've tried many ways to find the information you need to find someone in Mexico, from searching the Internet to speaking to friends and family. You may have been searching online for hours and hours. You may have talked to relatives or friends of the person you are searching for, but you just have not gotten the information you need and are not able to find this person living in Mexico.

Let’s start with the fundamentals of what information you should be searching for.

Your first goal should be to have the complete name of the person you are looking for. Let’s use the name Juan Carlos Garcia Gonzalez as an example.

If you have a friend who has a name like Juan Carlos, that is his name. In English we might separate out two names. Someone named Billy Bob may also be called Bob or Billy. However, in Mexico Juan Carlos is this person’s name. It’s not correct to call him Juan or to him Carlos. His name is Juan Carlos. Be aware of this because having the complete and full name is very important in your search and will help you to more quickly locate this person.

The complete name is not only their first name(s) but also both of their last names. In Spanish a person has two last names. The first last name in Spanish is the name of the father (for example: Garcia). Gonzalez is the second last name and this is the equivalent of our mother’s maiden name. By putting the two together and you have a complete name. Doing Mexico genealogy can often be easier because the two last names minimize the chance of accidentally researching someone else's family lineage.

You can also discover this information by talking to every relative this person has. Ask questions such as where did this person come from. Ask how they ended up in the United States. Ask where they went to school or where they vacationed as they were growing up. Different questions can help trigger memories and details that will help you find the information and the person you are looking for.

Saludos,




Richard Villasana
The Mexico Guru
Find Relatives In Mexico

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