This book is considered to be the starting place for anyone having family history ties to New Mexico, and for those interested in the history of New Mexico. Well before Jamestown and the Pilgrims, New Mexico was settled continuously beginning in 1598 by Spaniards whose descendants still make up a major portion of the population of New Mexico.

In villages scattered across the northern reaches of Spain’s New World empire, remote from each other and from the centers of power, family mattered. In this book Suzanne M. Stamatov skillfully relies on both ecclesiastical and civil records to discover how families formed and endured during this period of contention in the eighteenth century. Family was both the source of comfort and support and of competition, conflict, and even harm. Cases, including those of seduction, broken marriage promises, domestic violence, and inheritance, reveal the variabilities families faced and how they coped. Stamatov further places family in its larger contexts of church, secular governance, and community and reveals how these exchanges—mundane and dramatic—wove families into the enduring networks that created an intimate colonial New Mexico.

"This publication on the Martín Serrano family of Spanish Colonial New Mexico is a gem of a reference book and a valuable resource for individuals seeking to document their Martinez/Martín family genealogy and history. It is a collection of references to numerous members of the Martín Serrano family primarily for the period of 1700 through 1800 based on information extracted by Henrietta Martinez Christmas over the course of almost four decades of research into her own family lineage. . . . The Martín Serrano family was the largest clan of any of the seventeenth-century New Mexico Spanish families. In particular, three sons of Luis Martín Serrano and Catalina de Salazar each had a large number of children. -- Jose Antonio Esquibel" -- p.vii

Adams and Chavez polish a unique window on late 18th-century New Mexico, providing a seamless translation of Father Domnguez's original work as well as explanatory materials.