Beyond Origins of New Mexico Families
A website maintained by José Antonio Esquibel
Home Page ½ DMs of Durango Start Page
Background Information
about the
DMs from the Archives of the
Archdiocese of Durango
A microfilm project of the Rio Grande Historical Collections
New Mexico State University Library
Fray Angélico Chávez catalogued and indexed all the surviving diligencias matrimoniales (DMs), pre-nuptual investigations, found among the documents of the Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe ("
New Mexico Roots, Ltd."). The majority of these diligencias were processed by the local Franciscan friars. However, the DMs that required dispensation by the Bishop were sent from New Mexico to the See in Durango. Most often, dispensation was required because couple were related within the fourth degree of consanguinity (blood relatives) or affinity (related by marriage). Numerous DMs for related couples have rested among the archives of the Archdiocese of Durango for as long as three centuries.Mary D. Taylor conducted years of research in the archives of the Cathedral of Durango and recognized the significance of the records to the history of New Mexico. The archivist at the New Mexico State University Library (NMSU) in Las Cruces, NM, Austin Hoover—who was also the director of the Rio Grande Historical Collections (RGHC)—took an interest in Mrs. Taylor's discovery.
NMSU/RGHC was eventually successful in acquiring funding from the New Mexico Sate Legislature and other private sources to begin work on the Durango Microfilming Project. Currently, the Rio Grande Historical Collections has over 600 rolls of microfilm, much of which has been catalogued on a computer database. The rolls contain records pertaining to the communities within the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Durango, which included New Mexico.
For New Mexico genealogical research, the value of this collection lays in the numerous preserved DMs beginning with the year 1760.
Check out these other pages for more information—
What information is being extracted from the Durango DMs?
Volume I, 1760-1799: New Mexico Prenuptial Investigations From the Archivos Historicos del Arzobispado de Durango, Rick Hendricks, ed., John B. Colligan, compiler, forward by Thomas J. Steele, S.J. (Rio Grande Historical Collections, New Mexico State University Library, 1996, 166pp).