How to research archives in Spain and Portugal

Main contributor: Genie Milgrom

There are certain geographical areas in genealogy searches that can be done mostly and sometimes solely online with all the resources that are currently available. However, there are still many gaping holes in the Spain and Portugal archives that are digitized and on the internet.

Many of the descendants of those that originated from the Iberian Peninsula are today living in the Americas, which are not as rich in available archives and records. Because of this, oftentimes you will have to travel or hire someone to help you find your lineage physically in Spain and Portugal in the undigitized documents.

If your family were Catholic, you would hopefully find the birth certificate that will lead you straight to the village of your ancestors.

Eventually, your genealogy searches must be done in person and on-site. If you live in Latin America, there is limited information on what can be found to reach the origins of the ancestors on your family tree and to truly head back as far as required to find your Jewish lineage. You will eventually have to travel to the country and city of origin, which is why this one bit of data is crucial to locate in the country where they lived.

Research tips

As you head for Spain and Portugal, there are a few tips that will make your searches as stress free as possible. Basics to know.

Be prepared for any eventuality and don’t get upset. It is a slow pace and getting upset will probably set you back rather than advance your purpose. Stay on task.
Be sure you make a special archives trip without being attached to a vacation. The level of time you need to do a good job cannot be accomplished in bits and pieces of time here and there. It just will not work given the hours and schedules in Europe.
The geniemilgrom.com website has an extensive listing of all the archives in Spain including their addresses, phone numbers and usual operating hours. All the data should be verified but it gives an idea of what documents or collections are held in their archives and repositories.
Most archives will not allow anything inside except your phone, tablet and sometimes a pencil. Everything else must be left in a locker outside.
It is helpful to get an ID card as a researcher. I was lucky enough to have one made at the archives in Amsterdam but any University or Library may want to add the researcher term into an ID card. This will open doors for you at special archives that may be available.
It is important to know that most are only open in the morning. Plan on taking as many copies as you need as quickly as you can and only stop to analyze them later on your own. Unless you plan to stay a very long time, it is very difficult to really do much than locate and copy. Many archives will allow you to take phone or tablet pictures but from personal experience, these are very difficult to read later when you leave. Physical copies are clearer.
It is very helpful to take large post-it types of paper and note the book number, page, shelf number etc. so that you have a full record.
Before you start, check the work hours of the person making the copies or scans. This is important because oftentimes they only work in the mornings.

What you will find in the archives

Medieval Spanish and Portuguese records are written very differently than a book, as most of the pages are torn and have holes where animals have eaten through and many have ink or water splashes that perhaps have not aged well.

If you are starting with church records, there is good news because in 1545, at the Council of Trent, church records were standardized and all look the same with the exact information regardless of the country. Here are some important points:

Church Parish records are known as registros parroquiales
There will always be two witnesses. Sometimes the priest and a family member. For generations the families used the same witnesses for all their important records.
Churches keep books for each type of event separately. The marriage book, the baptisms, and deaths in large bound books.
Baptism records will have the date of baptism and at times no actual date of birth. The birth would have been a few days or weeks earlier. In the past the records of the Church did not usually include an actual birth certificate.
Death records follow the same format but will have two dates. Date of death and date of “Sepultura” which means the day of the burial
Confirmation records are usually long lists with names and not much more information other than the confirmation date.
Take good note of the scribes. Scribes were used by a family for generations and if you cannot find a record, sometimes you can chase down the scribe and find an entry to your own family history.
Know the regions of each country per year. Often, these regions and their names changed as did the physical boundaries. Have maps available for the 1800s, 1700s, etc.

Some practical advice

Be calm and not anxious. It helps to let you “see” the records.
Understand that you will be looking at medieval Spanish, Castilian Spanish, or Portuguese.
Like anything, reading these old-style records is a matter of getting used to them. It may look like gibberish at the onset but the reality is that after a while you will see the letters forming.
You will get used to seeing ‘through” the records and focus on what you can understand at first. Dates, days, and names will be the easiest to pull out at first
Words like HIJA DE (Daughter of) and ABUELOS DE (Grandparents of) will start to jump out at you so have confidence that you will be able to extract information quickly. This is why it is important to have the best copies or scans.
In the same record, the same word or name may have a different spelling, so don’t think it’s a different word. Issabella, Isabel, Isabell, etc., are the same.
Have alphabet charts with you to see the variations
Information such as marks or margin writing are very important
In all archives overseas, there are researchers and priests that live locally and you can ask to help you (for a fee). This is an additional cost but will save you a lot of time. If you pay the locals that know the archives well, you can make great strides. In the case of a priest or vicar, you may want to offer a donation to the Church to be more discreet.
Most families come from a limited geographical area. After the original Crypto-Jewish movements of 1480-1500, they tended to stay put in Spain or Portugal. In Portugal, they tended to move around even less.

Spanish writing

Spanish spelling was standardized in the 1700’s more or less so the scribes before that would write a word that “sounded like” the word they were writing. A prime example would be for grandparents which are abuelos and would be written as they sound such as aguelos or awelos. A scribe many times would add an H where one doesn’t exist such as Hesteban to the name Esteban and they would add random G’s in the middle of a word. You will get used to it and not even notice all these extras added into the records. The letter X was used often instead of writing Cristo, or Christ as the writing supplies were expensive and this would make for a cost savings. The most frustrating are the name abbreviations. Ma. For Maria, Po for Pedro, Fco for Francisco and so on. The ends of words or lines had often times deep flourishes. The word De is used often in the last names and was made many times in an abbreviation that looks like this:

Spanish Medieval writing

EZ and ES

The biggest fallacy in research of the Spanish Portuguese is that EZ and ES indicate whether the person was of Jewish Origin
Beware of this! In Spain, the scribes wrote the names with EZ and in Portugal with ES. One ended up with names like Mendez in Spain being Mendes in Portugal. Because so many Crypto-Jews moved to Portugal, the names took on ES but the fact that a Portuguese last name has an ES is not an indicator on its own.
What is very significant however, is the rampant use of the term, Portugues. This term was synonymous with the word Jew or Jewish. Records or books would have something like, Juan Mendes, un Portugues…. In reality it means a Jewish person and not his nationality
This practice followed all through the Americas in the records and archives of Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru. Etc.

Handwriting

Take note that the letters A and D are often confused, and the letters F and S are confused as they all look similar. Oftentimes a word with an s will have the letter twice as in religioso and will look like religiosso. This is not a mistake and is a way of writing in those times. The letters that get the most confused are the R and the X. The R looks like an X yet the X was made without lifting the pen from the paper and looks a bit different and is closed on the right side. The good news is that this type of writing is consistent with the scribe.

Other points to take into consideration

In the Spanish archives and records, the full names are listed by the last name so Alfredo Sanchez would be Sanchez, Alfredo
In the Portuguese and to an extent the Spanish Portuguese in Amsterdam it would be under the “A” for Alfredo. Because there were many similar names you may have to look through a huge list of Alfredo before finding Alfredo Sanchez.
It’s important to not only look at the event itself — Marriage, Baptism, etc. — but also to record the occupation because these generally ran in the families for generations. It might say Alfredo Sanchez, Hijo del joyero. This means Alfredo Sanchez, is a son of the Jeweler and now you would know that the family is in the jewelry business.
The word De or De La or Des does not always mean belonging to. Sometimes it is actually a part of the name. Examples are: Maria Ramos normally is a single woman. Maria De Flores would probably be a married woman and if you would dig deep enough you will find that her full name is Maria Ramos De Flores. However, Maria Deflores can also be a single name. Best not to assume.
Before 1700, small villages and rural areas would not always have surnames yet in the larger cities they would so the size of the town or village is important.
Do not assume that the family will all have the same last names in the 1600’s. Every single generation had a different surname they would use unless they were a famous family.
When it says ORIGINARIA DE it means place of origin or birth place and when it says VECINA DE it means the place where the person is currently living. This is very significant because once you know the birth place, you can always find other information on the family.
The baptism Certificates doubled oftentimes as a birth certificate so here you have to be very careful. It will usually say in Spanish, something to the effect of, Today, I baptized Manuel, who was born 4 days ago. You literally have to take the dates back to see the actual birth date of Manuel.
Many times the archives will say, Manuel was baptized at home “bajo necesidad” and will not give a date. This is problematic because you won’t really know the birth date of Manuel and it means he was too sick to go to a Church. It is a big sign of the Crypto Jews as very often, the parents did not want the children to be baptized.
It is difficult at times to know if a person is male or female so pay attention to the preposition. For example. UN hijo, El Bebito, LA Bebita, etc.
Many scribes would write the actual baby names in the margins and depending on the scribe, they would use the right margin for girls and left margins for boys and vice versa.
The information on the margins should be taken as an integral part of the record. They are not “add ins” or mistakes. It was just a writing style

Dates in Spain

You should have a chart with the date names because you will see this again and again. 1492 will be written MIL CUATROCIENTOS NOVENTA Y DOS. You should know the dates and numbers. Many times they would drop the MIL, and you would see it as CUATROCIENTOS NOVENTA Y DOS, SO BE CAREFUL AND KNOW IT’S NOT THE YEAR 492! Months may be abbreviated as 7bre for Septiembre 8bre for Octubre 9bre for Noviembre and 10bre for Diciembre.

Also important to know that even dates were written out. For example, the 10^th of December would be “El DIEZ De Diciembre.” Of special attention is when the o is dropped at the end of a word. For example, ventiuna de Diciembre (21 of December) might drop the a and be written as ventiun.

Many times, it seems that the abbreviations are rampant; however, they are consistent. For example, CORR for corriente which means current, FHA for fecha which means date and so on. Scribes may skip the date altogether and just say: DEL PRESENTE año which means of the present year. You would then have to look at the record right before it to see what is the current year.

Some interesting terminology

Cum Venia Parochi: In Latin means with permission of the Priest
Dominica seguna de cuaresma: The second Sunday of Lent. You would have to go back and figure out the date Parvulo: A child. Sentence: Bautize a un parvulo de 3 dias. I baptized a three-day old child. Presbitero is a Priest not a Presbyterian
Con licencia de Means with the permission of En constancia lo firme means in witness thereof, I signed it
Bachiller is a degree. Does not mean a bachelor

A deeper focus on Portugal

Portuguese records can be found in South America, Africa, and Asia
Widely spoken still today in Goa, India and the Island of Macau
Research in any of these locations will require a basic understanding of the language
The Portuguese language has as many as 8 different accent marks over the letters but for the purpose of reading versus speaking, you may not need these at this time. You should also note that in old Portuguese they were often omitted
The letters I and Y were interchangeable. This would not make too much of a difference except perhaps in a name. Ignacio and Ygnacio. Ivone and Yvone. The letters I and J were also used interchangeably so Isabelle could also be Ysabelle or Jsabelle.
S and Z were also used interchangeably Jesus (Jezuz) and look identical.
U and V were used interchangeably an example of this is that in Spanish the number nine is nueve and in Portuguese it’s novo but could be written as nouo
There were many double letters used back in early writings but nowadays Isabelle would just be Isabel
The double ss and double rr are still in use today.

Archives in Portugal

Same advice as Spain goes for the Portuguese archives with the exception that the hours are less strict and the whole atmosphere is more relaxed and welcoming in general
More than one name will be given at birth and usually one of the names must be a Catholic one. A child would not be just Carolina Ramos for example. It would be Maria Carolina Ramos and another surname will be added Maria Carolina Ramos Ramirez. (Ramos is the mother’s name and Ramirez is usually but not always the father’s name. This will give you clues as to the parents’ names but know this is NOT ALWAYS the case
Babies of aristocratic grandparents will include their names also and put them in front of the parents’ names in a case such as Maria Carolina Carvalho Santa Cruz Ramos Ramirez. The grandparents’ names took precedence over the parents’ names. So in conclusion, be alert when seeing two, three or four names at a birth because you may have stumbled upon names that will help you continue further back.
Occupations will be listed often in the parents’ names as if it were a surname. For example, Juan Velero or Juan de Miranda. Velero is an occupation and Miranda is the name of a city

Dates in Portugal

Because both Spanish and Portuguese are Latin-based languages, they are very similar; if you master one of these then you could easily read Portuguese with Spanish knowledge.
Portuguese records use the same numbering system that we do or they use Roman Numerals
As can be seen on the right, a lowercase alphabet is used as well in place of the numbers. You should always have these charts with you
A “U” Symbol saves a place between the thousands and the hundreds
1591 might be 1 U DXCI

Explore more about archives in Spain and Portugal

Spanish collections between the years 1490 and 1999 on MyHeritage
Portuguese collections between the years 1490 and 1999 on MyHeritage
How to Find Out if Your Ancestors Were Conversos, article by Daniella Levy on the MyHeritage Knowledge Base
Deciphering Old Handwriting: Paleography Strategies and Tips, article by Daniella Levy on the MyHeritage Knowledge Base

Top 5 Resources to Expand Your Spanish Genealogical Research, webinar with Daniel Smith-Ramos on Legacy Family Tree Webinars
Spanish Names: The Origins of Spanish Given Names and Surnames from the MyHeritage Blog