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    • Main contributor: Iñigo Berganza Valmala

    The Catholic Church plays a very important role in the Basque society on both sides of the border, as Basques have been a notably devout and churchgoing until well into the 20th century; while church attendance has diminished, as in most of Western Europe, Catholicism is still the largest religion in the Basque Country,[1] with around 60% of Basques professing Catholicism as their religion, with different levels of observance.

    As most Basques who were born after 1563 have been baptized, there must be at least a baptismal record available. More information might be available if they married, with a marriage record preserved by the Church. Lastly, a sizable percentage of the population will have a death/burial record too. This means that most of the effort to locate information about a Basque ancestor should be invested in exploring Basque Church records.

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    Distribution of Basque church records

    There are a total of 493 parishes in Álava, 198 in Biscay and 167 in Gipuzkoa; most of them have existed for centuries. Back in 1999, the Government of the Basque Autonomous Community entered into an agreement with the three Roman Catholic Dioceses of Vitoria, Bilbao, and San Sebastián so that all records from all parishes would be concentrated in one centralized archive per diocese. Furthermore, the Basque Government would invest so that all records older than year 1900 would be digitized, indexed and the indexes made publicly available online. The results of this project can be summarized as follows:

    Diocese of Vitoria

    The Diocese of Vitoria comprises roughly the province of Álava, with 0.83 million baptismal records, 0.18 million marriage records and 0.48 million death records. Records date from 1481 to 1900. Indexed records can be queried here and then clicking on SACRAMENTAL REGISTERS and Advanced Search. When looking for a person’s record, it should be remembered that surnames are spelled in different ways so the use of special characters ‘_’ and ‘%’ is highly recommended.

    Diocese of Bilbao

    The Diocese of Bilbao, comprising roughly the province of Biscay, has 1.28 million baptismal records, 0.32 million marriage records and 0.64 million death records. Records date from 1500 to 1900. Indexed records can be queried here and then clicking on SACRAMENTAL REGISTERS. The look and feel is similar to that of the Diocese of Vitoria, and both are available in English.

    Diocese of San Sebastián

    The Diocese of San Sebastián, comprising roughly the province of Gipuzkoa, has 1.96 million records in total. Records date from 1498 to 1900. Indexed records can be queried herewhere Baptism (Bautismos), Marriage (Matrimonios) or Death (Defunciones) shall be selected first. The look and feel is different to Álava and Biscay, and the webpage is not translated to English.

    Special characters “_” and “%” work as in previous cases.

    The three diocesan websites above are the main primary source for any genealogical research in the Basque Autonomous Community before the year 1900; mastering the use of queries takes some time and practice. It is important however to note that just the transcribed indexes (as above) are publicly accessible online. For the actual fully digitized images of the records (which include additional information, e.g., names of grandparents) they are only available locally on the three Diocese archives in Vitoria, Bilbao, and San Sebastián. Alternatively, a digital copy can be ordered online at a cost (3 to 4 Euros per copy). Please note these original Catholic Church records are all written in Spanish.

    Basque Government (Spain)

    The Government of the Basque Autonomous Community created a single page in which a query can be entered for the three Dioceses at once; this is useful for the cases in which the researcher doesn’t know which of the three regions the ancestor comes from this link.

    Example of a Basque church record

    A real example will be provided from the author’s own genealogy tree, to consolidate the information above and show that lineages can be traced far back just with the usage of the indexed Basque Catholic Church records. The proband is a child born in 2014. His mother was born in 1975 in Bilbao (Biscay), and her father was born in 1945 in Galdakao (Biscay). These three persons are still alive. The great grandmother of the proband was Felisa Bernas Zumelaga, born in 1916 in Atxondo (Biscay). Please note that, since she was born after 1900, her indexed baptismal record will not be found online. We know her father was Pablo Bernas Alcorta, whose baptismal record is indexed as below:

    He was baptized on June 7th, 1882 at the San Miguel de Arrazola parish in Atxondo (Biscay), and he was the son of Juan Antonio Bernas Alberdi. We can easily query his father’s baptismal record:

    Juan Antonio was baptized on January 18th, 1859 at the San Miguel Arcángel parish in Iurreta (Biscay). It’s interesting to note that, in this record, his mother’s second surname appears as “Barriola”. Through other records, we know that this surname is “Badiola” instead. It’s not uncommon to find typos or various forms of surnames in different parishes. Juan Antonio’s mother has a baptism record as follows:

    We see she was baptized as “Josefa Paula”, but she went just by “Paula” her whole life. Her second surname is “Bariola” in this instance. Since it’s a surname that comes from Gipuzkoa, it’s understandable that the priest in Iurreta (Biscay) would not spell it correctly. Paula’s father brings us already to the 18th century, he was baptized on September 30th, 1778:

    Pedro has “Alberdi” as his first and second surname. This might indicate some endogamy in his ancestors -which is also not uncommon in many Basque families-. Pedro’s mother, Manuela, was not baptized in Biscay but in Gipuzkoa:

    She was baptized as “Maria Manuela” in the Nuestra Señora de la Asunción parish of Azkoitia (Gipuzkoa) on April 24th, 1753. His father Pedro was also from Azkoitia:

    Pedro was baptized as “Pedro Antonio”. For the first time, we see a baptism record in which only the first surnames are given for the parents. However, thanks to their marriage record from 1715, we know the mother’s given name was “Juana Clara”, which is an uncommon first name in Gipuzkoa. Thus, it is possible to find her baptism record, already in the 17th century:

    Juana Clara, baptized on October 30th, 1695, is one of 10 siblings. 7 of them were baptized as “Izaguirre/Yzaguirre”, and the other 3 as “Eizaguirre”. It is the same surname obviously: it must be remembered that, at that time, the full name would be “Juana Clara de Izaguirre y Urteaga”, so both “de Izaguirre” and “de Eizaguirre” would sound the same to the priest’s ears. Maria Lopez de Urteaga (where Lopez is the patronym) is identified as “Maria Ignacia de Aizpuru y Urteaga” in her marriage record (no patronym), where “Aizpuru y Urteaga” is a compound first surname. It is thus easy to query for her baptism record:

    Maria Ignacia was baptized on October 16th, 1661, and his father Juan would use the first surname “Urteaga”, “Aizpuru” or “Aizpuru Urteaga”. This happened sometimes when a person wanted to preserve the second (maternal) surname but not completely abandon the first (paternal) surname: a compound first surname would be created. Focusing on the mother, Mariana Elorriaga, her baptism happened at the parish of San Andrés de Iriaun, in the Elosua neighborhood of Bergara (Gipuzkoa).

    Mariana was baptized on May 27th, 1641, and we see again that sometimes a compound surname (“Elorriaga Soraiz”) would be used, instead of “Elorriaga”. Her father Andres’ baptism record is also found in the same parish:

    Andres was baptized on January 14th, 1610, and there is a typo in the record (“Lorriaga” instead of “Elorriaga”) since the priest would hear that the father was “Santos de Elorriaga Soraiz” and wrote “de Lorriaga”. Andres’ mother appears in this record as “Graçia Joaniz” where “Joaniz” is a patronym usually written as “Joanes/Juanes”. Her baptism record is found in a different parish: that of San Juan Bautista de Uzarraga, in Antzuola (Gipuzkoa).

    Gracia was baptized with no patronym, which is normal. She brings us already to the 16th century, and the index mentions that the mother’s first surname does not appear in the record. However, Gracia had four brothers and three sisters, and in their baptism records we clearly see their mother was “Maria de Biscalaza y Aristi” (Biscalaza being written as Biscalaça, Vizcalaça, Vizcala, Vizcarlaca, Vizcalaca…). Her baptism record is as follows:

    Maria was baptized on January 16th, 1541, in the Nuestra Señora de la Piedad parish of Antzuola (Gipuzkoa). “Biscalaza” is the current form of the surname, but pre-1550 it was written “Biscarlaza” most of the time, also accounting for the typical variations “V” instead of “B”, “z” instead of “s”, “ç” or “c” instead of “z” etc. Maria was the daughter of Juan de Biscalaza, whose baptism record is available:

    Juan was baptized on November 2nd, 1511. He had at least three more siblings baptized in 1514, 1516 and 1520. His father was also Juan de Biscalaza/Biscarlaza and his mother was Maria (surname unknown): they would be born in the 15th century; their baptism records are not available since the parish of Nuestra Señora de la Piedad in Antzuola started recording baptisms in 1498.

    We cannot go further through Catholic Church records, so this finalizes the research of this specific line. If our proband born in 2014 is considered as Generation 1, Juan de Biscalaza (father) and his wife Maria would be Generation 18. There are thousands of additional lines which can be researched this way stemming from our proband; not all of them will reach this far since records starting as far as 1498 is uncommon. It can be mentioned that all six parishes mentioned in this research still exist and stand to this day.

    See also

    Explore more about Basque church records


    References

    1. ↑ Basque in Spain
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