Family History Research in Spain
For the past 20 years, we’ve carried out extensive research on hundreds of families at places like the National Library of Spain, National Archives of Spain, National Archives of Mexico, and Family History Library in Salt Lake City, USA. The fascinating and diverse cultural heritage of the Spanish-speaking world has enabled us to gain a wealth of expertise in a wide variety of subject areas relating to Spanish genealogy and family history, and many of the families we've worked on are available for review on this site. If you’re looking for assistance with your project, we have extensive research experience in all parts of Spain, as well as Spanish-speaking countries and former Spanish colonies in the United States, Philippines, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and elsewhere. Please click the link below if you’d like to hire our team to assist you with a custom-made genealogy project in any of these places.
Humans have lived in Spain for the past 35,000 years, as can be seen by the cave paintings and other evidence left behind there. The Iberian Peninsula, where Spain is located, has been mentioned in historical sources since ancient times, with cities like Cádiz (1100 BCE), Málaga (770 BCE), and Tarragona (218 BCE) being some of the oldest in Europe. With the defeat of the Carthaginians by the Romans in 218 BCE, most of Spain was incorporated into the Roman Province of Hispania. After the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 AD, the country was ruled by the Visigoths, who were subsequently replaced by the Moors during the Muslim conquest of Spain in 711 AD. From 722 to 1492, attempts were made to reclaim the Iberian Peninsula for the Catholic Church, with the eventual ouster of the Moors by the Christian monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. From that point forward, Spain became a global empire, establishing colonies all over Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia, a legacy still felt today. Perhaps your ancestors played a part in this fascinating history, and left behind important documentation that connects to your present-day genealogy? To help get you started on this exciting voyage of discovery, we’ve assembled an expert team of genealogists to help you uncover the unique story of your family's journey through time.
Records for Spain can be found at the National Archives of Spain and National Library of Spain in Madrid. These records include property deeds, court records, newspapers, local histories, military records, family wills, tax lists, biographies, and other types of records. However, many records relating to various regions of Spain are generally kept separately at the local level at civil registration offices, church parishes, regional archives, and local libraries. However, the most important records for Spanish genealogy research would be civil registration and church records, which would be the primary record types for family history research in Spain. Civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths officially began in Spain at the national level in 1871, but some municipalities have records dating back to 1837. These records are the best place to start with your genealogy search, and from there you would get into church parish records, which are sometimes available back to the 1500s or even earlier.
If you'd like to continue research on your own, please click on the following links for additional resources relating to your Spanish history and genealogy. To get the best results with your research, we'd recommend subscriptions to the following sites, as well as autosomal and Y-DNA testing to help with any longstanding brick walls you may have encountered your tree.
If you’d like to learn more about your own family history and are interested in building a high-quality, well-documented tree, we'd love to help. We're passionate about genealogy and would welcome the opportunity to assist you with creating an exciting record of your ancestors that can be enjoyed for many generations to come. Our professional research team can gather records for you in all parts of Spain, as well as many Latin American countries and former Spanish colonies. The surnames listed below belong to some of the most noteworthy in Spain, whose families have been thoroughly documented on our site. Please click on the links below to visit some of the pages we've created on these families, which might give you some idea about what we could also achieve for you during a typical genealogy project in Spain or elsewhere. Our on-the-ground team of researchers, who live in places like Madrid, Valencia, and Barcelona, can help you find your ancestors in Spain, as well as places like the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and elsewhere. Thanks for visiting our site and good luck with your research!
All rights reserved. No information can be copied or reproduced from this website without the prior consent of the webmaster.
