Greetings from Tejas (another newbie) - Tracking Family in Zacatecas

Hello everyone,

My name is Arthur and I am looking forward to being part of the online community. I was born in California, but I now live in Texas, where most of my family first lived when coming from Mexico. My mother's family came from Parral, Chihuahua and my father's family (Great grandfather and most of his children) came from Fresnillo, ZAC via the Durango, Durango area. All of them came up to the US between 1915-1930, during and immediately after the Revolution. My mother and father were both US born.

I have always been interested in my family history, but had limited contact with extended family, as my maternal grandparents died when my mother was a child and my paternal grandfather died when I was 6 years old. My remaining grandmother, lived with my uncle in Colorado and I had limited contact with her. As for extended cousins, for the most part, I have had no contact with them until more recently, when I came across a 2nd cousin who has also been doing family research. I picked up my research about a year ago and I have more or less been able to track all four of my grandparent lines to or through Fresnillo, ZAC/Durango or Parral, Chihuahua.

Regarding my research, I have started to hit a wall with the online resources I am currently using. Primarily I use is the myfamilysearch (LDS) website and I have become pretty good at understanding how the data is indexed and commonly perform search across the film or index number rather than a name/description search functions.

Where I have challenges now is understanding where the 'gaps' exist in the LDS information database. I have been told by my stepmother (who retired to the Jerez, ZAC area with my father), that there were entire sections of govt and church records destroyed during the Revolution. I know from looking at the Parral, Chi online records, there are 'chunks' of birth/baptism and wedding information missing from certain periods in the late 1800s.

Has anyone else figured out a workaround for this missing/destroyed information? I am thinking I need just one lucky break to get rolling again.

Also, how does one determine when a family ancestor came from Spain/France to Mexico? My initial online searches show there is limited online resource for some Euro countries. I have one grandparent line which I think has "jumped" to Europe because the track just stops...unless the records have been destroyed, which is another possibility.

If anyone is interested, you can see my initial submission background info here:

http://www.nuestrosranchos.com/en/ajmedrano

The primary names I am looking for are Martiniano Medrano and Juliana Valdez in about the 1850-1860 timeframe for Fresnillo, Zac. Both may have had connections to the Hacienda Santa Cruz or the Hacienda Trujillo. If anyone has information about those haciendas, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you!!!!!