Santa Cruz Families

The number of children in Santa Cruz area households in the 1750 census varied from 1 to 16, with most having 1 to 7. These included homes where the husband or wife had married more than once, and might include nieces, nephews, adopted captives, and children of servants.

The largest household was headed by Luciana Ábila with 16 children. She was identified as a mulata living in La Soledad. She may have been an available woman or may have taken in orphans. There must have been wet nurses of some kind.

Tomasa Manzanares was reported to have 13 children by the priest in Chama, but with a household of 3 by the one in Santa Cruz. She was known as an herbalist.

The actual number of children born by a woman with any one man is harder to determine because so many pages are missing from the baptismal registries. Still, looking at the table below, the norm of 3 to 7 found in the census appears reasonable.

	Children	Census	Baptisms
	16	1
	13	1
	12		1
	11	2
	10	2
	9	5
	8	4	2
	7	13	6
	6	16	11
	5	21	16
	4	36	28
	3	33	49
	2	28	90
	1	24	217

The baptismal records, however, include many more women with 1 or 2 children. While some of those would have been marriages between 1750 and 1760, the decade after the census was taken, perhaps as many would have died or moved away. Some were servant women. And, while I tried to exclude captives who were baptized, there still may have been some. All of these could have appeared in household totals.

Others who appeared only in the baptismal records may have been women who died young, and whose husbands remarried. Mortality is difficult to determine. The missing diligencias matrimoniales would have provided some age information for remarriages, and for male witnesses.

Only three people lived alone, one man, Lázaro Durán, and two women, Gertrudis Moreno and Ysabel María Montoya. Presumably, the women were widows, but weren’t so identified by the priests in Santa Cruz. Only 6 widows were reported among the 41 women who headed households. Five men were described as widowers, and 3 mothers-in-law were mentioned who lived with their daughters’ families.

	Children	Mothers-in-law	Widows	Other Single Women	Widowers
	16			1
	13			1
	12
	11
	10
	9		1
	8	1
	7			2
	6			2
	5		2	6	1
	4	1		7	1
	3		1	3	1
	2		1		1
	1		1
	No breakdown	1		13	1
	Total	3	6	35	5

The marriage records from Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, and San Juan for españoles suggest equal numbers of widows and widowers remarried. However only one or two remarried in any given year. The fact none of the widows or widowers listed in the 1750 census were among those who remarried in the ensuing decade suggests many remained unmarried in households with their children and/or servant captives. Indeed, the presence of the latter may have made such a life sustainable.

	Year	Widow	Widower	Both
	1733	1	1
	1734		2	1
	1735
	1736	1
	1737			1
	1738-39
	1740		1
	1741	1
	1742
	1743	1	1
	1744		1
	1745		1
	1746-50
	1751		1
	1752	1
	1753-54
	1755	1
	1756-58
	1759	2
	Total	8	8	2

Extended families existed, but rarely were reported by the priests. Francisco Atensio had four siblings living with him in Santa Cruz. Francisco Martín and Juana Martín were raising three grand-daughters. Cristóbal Mestas had a brother-in-law in his household. They may have been part of the larger Mestas household mentioned in the post for 18 September 2016.

Not included in the census were children who died or moved away. The smaller households may have included both older ones as well as younger ones.

Notes:
New Mexico Genealogical Society. New Mexico Baptisms, Santa Cruz de la Cañada Church, Volume I, 1710 to 1794, transcribed by Virginia Langham Olmsted and compiled by Margaret Leonard Windham and Evelyn Luján Baca, 1994.

_____. New Mexico Marriages Church in Sam Juan Pueblo 1726-1776, 1831-1855 and Church in Santa Clara Pueblo 1726-1832, extracted by M. Eloise Arellanes and compiled by Margaret Leonard Windham and Evelyn Luján Baca, 1998.

_____. 100 Years of Marriages, 1726-1826, Santa Cruz de la Cañada, New Mexico, extracted and compiled by Henrietta Martinez Christmas and Patricia Sánchez Rau.

_____. Spanish and Mexican Census of New Mexico, 1750 to 1830, prepared by Virginia Langham Olmsted; includes "Spanish Colonial Census of New Mexico, 1750."

Tables:
From the baptismal records at Santa Cruz, I only included people with a least one known parent. This excluded captives who were baptized. The sacramental register has a number of missing pages, so the total is an undercount. It also does not include Spanish-speakers who lived near San Juan or Santa Clara and baptized their children in one of those missions.

From the marriage records, I only included couples for whom last names for given for each, and neither were identified as servants.