Mexican Genealogy Reference Tools: The García Cubas Gazetteer

Becoming familiar with the place names referenced in your ancestors’ Mexican records can be challenging, particularly for those of us who are not from Mexico and who might not have visited the places where our ancestors lived.

Garcia Cubas Gazetteer - HathiTrust
Interior cover of Volume I.
Antonio García Cubas, Diccionario geográfico, histórico y biográfico de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos [Geographic dictionary, historical and biographical of the United Mexican States], Tomo [Volume] I (México : Antigua Impr. de Murguia, 1888), n.p.; digital images, HathiTrust Digital Library (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.35112101821793 : accessed 1 December 2017).

This work is one of my regular “go to” reference tools when doing Mexican research. It is always open on my second computer monitor whenever I am reviewing records and my research notes. I list this work in the handout for every single Mexican genealogy class I teach.

Antonio García Cubas

Antonio García Cubas (1832 – 1912) is generally described as “un historiador, cartógrafo, geógrafo y escritor mexicano” (a Mexican historian, cartographer, geographer, and writer).1 He is recognized as the “primer geógrafo mexicano” (first, meaning more like “most preeminent”, Mexican geographer).2 García Cubas authored many classic works charting and describing the geography and history of Mexico.

One such work is his five-volume book, the Diccionario geográfico, histórico y biográfico de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos (Geographic, historical and biographical dictionary of the United Mexican States).

The Gazetteer

If you are not familiar with gazetteers, a gazetteer is a geographical dictionary. It provides an alphabetical list of place names and geographical landmarks, which often includes a brief description of that place or landmark at the time the work was compiled. Gazetteer entries sometimes reference changing boundaries and identify older historical place names. These features make gazetteers quite useful for learning about the places where your ancestors lived, worked, or traveled.

There are a number of Mexican gazetteers available in print or on microfilm. But the Diccionario geográfico, histórico y biográfico de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos is the only one that is fully available online. It was published between 1888 – 1891, and is only available in Spanish. This particular gazetteer focuses on administrative divisions, and does not include ecclesiastical divisions.

This gazetteer is helpful for learning about where your Mexican ancestors lived in late 19th century. Although the state and municipio structure pertains to post-Independence Mexico, many of the local place names existed during the colonial era. So I still regularly consult the Garcia Cubas gazetteer when working with colonial records too.

The five-volume set is arranged in alphabetical order, with Volume 1 (published in 1888) containing the “A” entries. There is no hierarchical order. State names and community names are mixed in together.

Garcia Cubas Gazetteer - HathiTrust - Armadillo page
The page in Volume I in which my ancestral municipio of Armadillo (state of San Luis Potosí) appears.
Antonio García Cubas, Diccionario geográfico, histórico y biográfico de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos [Geographic dictionary, historical and biographical of the United Mexican States], Tomo [Volume] I (México : Antigua Impr. de Murguia, 1888), 32; digital images, HathiTrust Digital Library (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.35112101821793 : accessed 1 December 2017).

The entry for each state includes a description of the history, geographic landscape, climate, mineral production, crop production, plant textiles and filaments, political divisions and population figures, principal industries, and the main population centers and brief demographic statistics.

Entries for each municipio (similar to a county in the U.S.) reference the state and administrative division in which it belongs, the geographic borders, the municipio seat (usually the largest community), a brief description of the terrain, a listing of communities broken down by type (more on those in a later blog post), and the municipio population.

Garcia Cubas Gazetteer - HathiTrust - Armadillo
A close up view of the entry for my ancestral municipio of Armadillo in the state of San Luis Potosí.
Antonio García Cubas, Diccionario geográfico, histórico y biográfico de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos [Geographic dictionary, historical and biographical of the United Mexican States], Tomo [Volume] I (México : Antigua Impr. de Murguia, 1888), 32; digital images, HathiTrust Digital Library (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.35112101821793 : accessed 1 December 2017).

The example above is for my main ancestral municipio, Armadillo (now called Armadillo de los Infante) in the central Mexican state of San Luis Potosí. It identifies the Villa of Armadillo as the municipio seat. It lists the four types types of settlements in that municipio: the villa cabacera (head village or municipio seat), congregaciones (these are a settlement unit, not a church unit), haciendas (estates or plantations), and ranchos (ranches). A list of specific commuities is identified under each settlement type. My ancestors primarily came from Hacienda Temascal (now spelled Temaxcal). 3

The Hathi Trust Copy

My favorite place to access this gazetteer online is on HathiTrust (pronounced “hah-tee”). Not familiar with HathiTrust? Wikipedia provides the most helpful description I have found:

HathiTrust is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via the Google Books project and Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally by libraries.4

HathiTrust provides free full-text online access to all five volumes of this work that is now in the public domain.

Garcia Cubas Gazetteer - HathiTrust - Reader
Key features available in the full text view of HathiTrust.

Aside from HathiTrust having a cleaner looking interface than other sites that provide access to the Garcia Cubas gazetteer, the HathiTrust version has better navigation and reading features. Highlighted in the screenshot above, these features include:

  • (Green Arrow) Pagination buttons that make flipping through each volume much easier and quicker, including the ability to jump back to the first page or forward to the last page.
  • (Purple Arrow) The ability to zoom in and out. I like to zoom out when quickly flipping through pages, but I like to zoom in and make the text larger when actually reading and studying the entries.
  • (Red Box) The “Find: button allows you to search within the actual text of each volume.
Garcia Cubas Gazetteer - HathiTrust - Text Search Results
What a full text search looks like in the HathiTrust version.

As shown in the screenshot above, the full text search results display all references to that search term, grouped by page number. Each page number is hyperlinked, allowing you to quickly access that particular page to review the entries containing that term.

Other Copies

Since I am focusing on the gazetteer itself as well as the HathiTrust version, I do need to mention where else this Garcia Cubas work can be found online for free.

Learning More

Sources Cited

  1.  Wikipedia Español, (https://es.wikipedia.org), “Antonio García Cubas,” rev. 23:02, 04 September 2017.
  2.  “Antonio García Cubas: primer geógrafo mexicano” {Antonio García Cubas: first Mexican geographer}, Servicio de Información Agroalimentaria y Pesquera Blog {Agrifood and Fisheries Information Service}, gob.mx {Mexican federal government portal}, 26 July 2017 (https://www.gob.mx/siap/articulos/antonio-garcia-cubas-primer-geografo-mexicano?idiom=es : accessed 27 November 2017).
  3. Antonio García Cubas, Diccionario geográfico, histórico y biográfico de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos {Geographic dictionary, historical and biographical of the United Mexican States}, Tomo {Volume} I (México : Antigua Impr. de Murguia, 1888), 32; digital images, HathiTrust Digital Library (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.35112101821793 : accessed 1 December 2017).
  4.  Wikipedia, (https://en.wikipedia.org), “HathiTrust,” rev. 20:32, 30 November 2017.

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