VGA’s January 15th’s Hispanic Online SIG: Search and Documentation Strategies for Hispanic Names

Logo for the Virtual Genealogical Society and name of the Hispanic Special Interest GroupThis announcement is cross-posted from the Virtual Genealogical Association.

I am thrilled to kick off VGA’s new SIG with this important and often misunderstood topic when doing Hispanic research. Join us for an evening of engaging informative conversation.


Like many cultures, Hispanic countries (we’re including Spain) have traditional naming conventions. Understanding these well will make you much more successful when researching and documenting your ancestors in Spanish-speaking countries, and those who immigrated to the United States (possibly to other non-Spanish-speaking countries too).

Join us on Tuesday, January 15th!

Discussion Topic

After brief introductions, we’ll start off with a short primer on traditional Hispanic naming conventions: surnames, given names, and women. Then we’ll ask the group to share tips on, or ask questions about, what seems to work best for handling these naming conventions:

  • in your genealogy database and/or online tree
  • in source citations
  • when writing family history narratives
  • when searching online
  • for individuals who lived in the old country and then immigrated to a non-Spanish-speaking country

If you have specific examples (links, screenshots, documents, etc.) that you want to share with the group, please have those saved on your computer desktop or browser tabs/bookmarks for quick easy access.

Meeting Logistics & Access

  • Date & Time: Tuesday, January 15, 2019 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.)
  • Discussion Topic: Search and documentation strategies for Hispanic names
    (Leader: Colleen Robledo Greene, MLIS)
  • Joining the Meeting: Pre-registration is required (even just right before the event)
    • Register on the Hispanic SIG Meeting Access web page (you must be logged in to your VGA account first)
    • Participation is limited to VGA members.
    • The meeting link will be included in email reminders to you the day before and one hour before the meeting start time, and shared in our private Facebook Group

REGISTER TODAY FOR OUR 2019 SIG MEETINGS!

Not yet a VGA member? Annual membership is just $20 USD. JOIN VGA TODAY!

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1 thought on “VGA’s January 15th’s Hispanic Online SIG: Search and Documentation Strategies for Hispanic Names”

  1. Alice estrads

    Regarding changing women maiden name to husband name after coming to U S. I worked for DMV where clerks took it upon themselves to change the last name to the husbands name. That went for young men also. The clerks changed their last name to the father’s last name, when they went to get a driver’s license.

    Now that we need to get the new ID, birth crrtificayes will not match DL. What a hess.

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