Heritage Album

How would I trace my lineage/ genealogy?

Most Filipinos have Hispanicized last names because of the Catalogo Alfabetico de Apellidos that the Spanish mandated. I want to do some sort of family tree to possibly trace my lineage, how would I do that? Or is that impossible? Note: I want to trace two last names of mine. One last name being something that isn't Spanish and could possibly be native (but I'm not sure of its orgin, it's an uncommon last name) and the other being a fairly common Spanish last name. With all your answers in mind, does anyone know where I might get a hold of the Catalogo Alfabetico de Apellidos or if that's even possible to find in libraries and such. Thank you all for your help.

Public Comments

1. The plain answer is I don't know about searching Filipino ancestry and what resources there are, nor do I know how far back, that is, at what point you're ready to go at it. The only specific suggestions I have at this time are churches local to your families, and familysearch.org More generalized would be the usual good genealogy sites, ancestry.com, rootsweb.com &c because there is a good chance that others have taken a look at some point for some of your same relatives even if aunts, uncles, & cousins along the line. Look for the message boards on those sites for surnames and place, and rootsweb's email lists & the archives of those - if a search of what you find doesn't bring up what you need, post a query. Your inquiry may be just what someone you need to find is looking for! Even search engines may bring up something. It's a start! And if you learn the ropes you can come back and tell what you learned.
2. Go to a search engine and type in this: +surname thats the name ur looking for OR: +Firstname+Lastname that should bring up things for you to look thru. Make sure u put the + in there. Also, ancestry.com is offering 3 free days for first time sign up. Just start with you and your parents and you off to go search for free for 3 days. Good Luck in your search.
3. First I must share an assumption that I always work from which is that even very difficult searches ARE POSSIBLE, some just take longer than others. The initial start is always yourself and your immediate family. I apologize if if this is too elementary for your situation but it is crucial, there is no sense jumping back into the 1800s and looking for your surnames, you need to have a step by step connection. So do family group sheets for your parents, then for each of your sets of grandparents. The important part is of course both the dates of event (birth, marriage, death) and the places. Gleaning every bit of info that you can get from your older relatives about family locations and goings on you would then be ready to start searching in the records. Along the way try to get any documentation that your parents might have like birth and marriage certificates. Surname finder (see url in the source list below) gave the best list of Filipino resources that I could find quickly. Do the search on Google "Filipino genealogy", that turns up 800 hits some of them specific family lines that might be of use to you. Note:I see that the source box has cut off part of the url, here it is again , I have added some spaces and put the whole thing in quote marks to try and make sure you can see it all. Copy it from here and put it into the address line but then delete the spaces, "http:// www. genealogy today.com /surname/ finder.mv? Surname=Filipino" Once you have some surnames and places to search go to Family Search.org (url down below). The Spanish were catholic and each parish would have kept records and quite possibly those records have been filmed by the LDS and are available through the the Family History Library. Some of those films may have already been put in their "extraction" process where they read and index the films and put the info into the IGI. So go there and do a surname search to see what might turn up. Good luck.
4. When doing genealogy research first start with what you know, from what you know you will be able to expand your research. Examples of what you know is, who were your grandparents? who were their parents, etc.
5. when i started tracing my family tree, i started with a ink from my local library; which directed me to familysearch.org, from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
6. Actually, the majority of the last names in the Catalogo for the Philippines are native, not Spanish. For the introduction to the Claveria decreee, click first link source below. If you need to have a copy of the decree and catalogo, click on the second link to communicate with the Philippines National Archives. First of all, if you can reconstruct your family tree up your great- or grandparents and you know where in the Philippines your family comes from, follow the Mormon link given above. You must know where your family comes from because your "common" surname may have been distributed all over the country and their holders may not be related at all. The Mormon Church microfilmed Philippine local records and, if you already have an idea of your ancestors' hometown and approximate dates information, you can then search for their personal records (birth, baptism, marriage, death, burial, etc.) by microfilms that the Family History Library Catalog on the site has indexed. Make a Place search and you're well on your way. The discovery of how to go about your way is the real thrill. Go for it!