Angelico Chavez, O.F.M. (April 10, 1910-March 18, 1996)
Born the first of ten children to Fabián Chávez and María Nicolasa Roybal de Chávez in Wagon Mound, New Mexico, Chavez was baptized with the name Manuel Ezequiel. He was a 12th-generation New Mexican, whose family had been in the area since the first colonial settlement of 1598. In 1912, his family moved to San Diego, California, where his father worked for the Panama-California Exposition. The missions he was exposed to in California inspired him to follow in the footsteps of Junípero Serra and the other missionaries to the Native Americans. [Wikipedia]
I'm not going to try to do a bio on Fray Angelico as there is quite a bit of information on him online. The work being done by Yolanda Chavez is an extremely time-consuming transcription of his work and I'm honored to have those early records on my website. Most of the information is from baptism records with other sources added such as census, military, marriage and death records. It's amazing that one man could put together so much history.
In addition to his love of genealogy, Chaves was a painter, poet and essayist. Most of Chavez's historical work was published in book form - Origins of New Mexico Families in the Spanish Colonial Period in 1954. There is a statue in his honor in Wagon Mound, NM.
from Yolanda
Fr. Chavez was privy to the Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. This consisted of all the old baptismal, marriage and confirmation books gathered up from all the parishes in NM. Most of the books are leather bound and go back to about 1699 or somewhere near that date.
The Morman church copied all of the books and put them on microfilm. The Archdiocese were given 2 sets of films and the Morman church kept 2 also. The films I use are at the main library here in Albuquerque. The Archdiocese does not allow access to the fragile books any longer.
Fr. Chavez had a group of ladies that came to the Archdiocese on Fridays and translated some of the books to English. I was part of that endeavor.
Father Chavez did the Diligencias Matrimoniales which in English are the Pre Nup investigations done on couples that may have been related or questionable circumstances. The University of New Mexico has those marriage translations online.
Father Chavez authored ORIGINS OF NEW MEXICO FAMILIES and other NM related books. He was truly devoted to telling the history of New Mexico people. As a Franciscan, he took the vow of poverty so he did all his work on any paper he could get his hands on. Sometimes they were scraps. He did all this when there were no mimeograph machines that may have been helpful to him.
Fr. Chavez had a cranky disposition when he was older and we all knew when he arrived at the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in Albuquerque on Fridays from his home in Santa Fe ...
