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The Problems
- The 1704-1713 Records
If you are searching the marriage records of Tlaltenango for a 1705 marriage and are at a 1703 marriage or if you are searching for a 1712 marriage and are at a 1714 marriage, you might think that jumping a few pages ahead or back will bring you to the target year. But you are in for a big shock because the facing pages on the very same image ( https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1-15265-28239-26 ) has 1704 marriages up to 8 May 1704 on the left-hand page and 1713 marriages starting with 8 Sep 1713 on the right-hand page.
Even if you are using Arturo Ramos Pinedo's otherwise outstanding 2010 book "Familias Antiguas de Tlaltenango", you will discover that these marriages are not included. Note that in his book (page 114), he jumps from a 21 Apr 1701 marriage to a marriage 18 Oct 1713 even though there are marriages within that period clearly present in the chruch register. Here are the dates of marriages omitted from the book that are in the church register: 21 Apr 1704, 23 Apr 1704 (2), 27 Apr, 28 Apr, 4 May (2), 5 May, 8 May and then also 24 Sep 1713 and 2 Oct 1713.
So where are the missing 1704-1713 Tlaltenango marriages?
- Damaged Records Impact the Index
The 1704-1713 records are damaged at the top, with some information lost forever. Most of these records do however have at least some information on the people involved -- for example, may be one or more parents of the bride or groom. But that means that searching in the FamilySearch Mexico Marriages index for these as if they were fully documented does not work.
- Burial Records in the 1626-1723 Marriages Collection
Family Search's online digitized collection of Tlaltenango "Matrimonios 1626-1723" is mis-labeled, since it also contains burials for 11 Dec 1660 to 20 Nov 1682 hidden within the 628 images.
Working forward in the collection, the first burial record is an inverted record on image 396 ( https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939N-BRYY-G?cc=1804458&wc=3PS7-7MS ): 19 Feb 1676 burial of Maria Magdalena mujer de Francisco Ventura.
The top of the next page is missing due to age and wear. The burials continue, with somewhat erratic chronology, possibly due to being in different locations (I am not sure).
The last burial is on image 434 ( https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939N-BRBS-X?cc=1804458&wc=3PS7-7MS ): 30 Dec 1675 Juan Bautisa marido de Maria Antonia.
Solutions
- The 1704-1713 Records (See The 1704-1713 Tlaltenango de Sánchez Román Marriage Records Missing from "Familias Antiguas de Tlaltenango" for an index to records missing from the book.)
The 1704-1713 marriages are bound in an entirely different book. Here are the URLs for some of the locations of these 1704-1713 marriages:
Note that these records, in both books, are included in the Family Search Mexico Marriages 1570-1950 index when they are legible, but they are not in the Mexico, Zacatecas, Catholic Church Records, 1605-1980 index.
Problems with the FamilySearch Indexes:
There is another problem that has surfaced as I have tried to work this solution. The FamilySearch Mexico Marriages index shows a 21 Jun 1712 marriage (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JZXB-3YR), but when you go to the page where this marriage should be ( https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1-15257-8743-68 ), you find that the marriages jump from 20 Mar 1712 to 26 Jun 1712, with no marriage listed at all for 21 Jun 1712. So where is this record that clearly someone found in order to create the index entry but which is not where it should be? (And were there more marriages in this 3-month gap that took place and are also not in the right place?) So far, I have not been able to find the image of this 21 Jun 1712 marriage.
Two images later ( https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1-15257-9461-9?cc=1804458 ), there are two 25 Jun 1712 marriages among the August marriages. These appear to have been erroneous in the month, since they are followed be a 25 Aug 1712 marriage written by the same priest.
- Damaged Records Impact the Index
Searches in the FamilySearch Mexico Marriages index have to be done for each person separately (bride, groom, bride father, groom father, ...). But even then you really may just want to go through all of the pages of images for the years where you think the marriage should be and see if you can figure out if one of the damaged records is the one you want. (It does appear that Arturo Ramos Pineda did the transcriptions for his book from the original church registers and not the microfilm since he includes text that is missing from the microfilm images but is on a group of pages of a small bottom section that is cut out in the images. The microfilming team apparently made no attempt to capture the images of those fragments at the bottom of the pages.)
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