Microfilm collection of municipal and parochial archives from the Mexican states of Coahuila, Nuevo León, San Luis Potosí, Chihuahua, and others.

Material Description

Our collections include approximately 7,722 rolls of microfilm, or more than 3.86 million discrete documents, created in conjunction with Mexican institutions of higher learning. For example, Trinity University partnered with the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), which since 1962 had worked to save Nuevo León's archival records from deterioration. Similar projects were undertaken by the co-applicants: St. Mary's University worked in San Luis Potosí; UT-Austin filmed records from the National Archives in Mexico City; and UT-El Paso worked in Chihuahua, Morelia, and Durango. These interventions resulted in microfilm collections of municipal, judicial, diplomatic, and military documents. The microfilms also contain church records of baptisms, confirmations, marriages, and funerals. According to librarian Katherine Pettit, who in 1986 created a finding aid to Trinity's collection, ITESM's filming was "much more inclusive than that of the Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." In other words, the collection contains original materials of major research significance that are not reproduced elsewhere.