Sephardim in Mexico

Does anyone know how to contact a cronista for any given municpal?

I would like to contact the cronista from Rio Grande, COahuila also known as Guerrero.
--
Esther A. Herold

-------------- Original message from arturoramos : --------------

>
> Chris:
>
> The Carvajales are certainly a well known family in Mexico among genealogists.
> Because the records of the inquisition are so clear in their condemnation of
> them as Jews and their pivotal role in the foundation of Monterrey and several
> other northern Mexican cities.
>
> I imagine that there are plenty of descendants of Carvajales that have traced
> their lineage back. If your research is well documented, I would suggest
> sharing it with the general public through Mimo Lozano's Somos Primos
> publication.
>
> I have done some reading on the Sephardim of Mexico. My strict paternal lineage
> is somewhat problematic because I get back to about 1770 and I have an ancestor
> who was "expuesto" and adopted and therefore I am unable to go back any further.
> It is certainly a great enigma that I would like to resolve... where Joseph
> Ramon Aranzazu came from and who his parents were. Some in the group have told
> me that it is possible his adoptive father was in fact his illegitimate father.
> There are Aranzazus around Tlaltenango today who are probably descendants of the
> adoptive father Bartholome Aranzazu and a Y-DNA test of one of them would prove
> or disprove that theory.
>
> The cronista of Totatiche seems to think that the early Spanish families around
> the region were Sephardim and because the region was a frontier where the
> indigenous people had been given autonomy it was a good refuge. It certainly
> attracted many escaped slaves. That is pretty well documented in early
> litigation between the "naturales" and some of the espanoles who were trying to
> claim their land under the pretense that they were not in fact "naturales" of
> the region but rather slaves that had escaped their masters and indigenous
> people who had escaped their encomiendas. Early records in Tlaltenango,
> Colotlan and Totatiche certainly show many negros and mulattos, many of them
> free and mostly marrying into the local indigenous population.