Lupe,

Two other people have suggested taking a second look at the documents you think say "Angola" because usually when someone has been born in the capital city (Aguascalientes) of the state of Aguascalentes, it is sometimes written as "Aguascalientes, Aguas", or they abbreviate the state name some other way (Ags).

I looked at the immigration record you refer to and I don't see the word "Angola" anywhere. The index for this record says Birthplace: Aguascalientes, and Birth Country: Angola, but I think it was the state abbreviation "Aguas" that they mistook for Angola. I just can't see how they arrived at that. In the indexes for the Census records in Ancestry many of the names are so fractured in the index that it is hard to find who you are looking for unless you tediously look through each page for the community or county they lived in then. In the 1930 census on Ancestry doesn't it list Cruz' birthplace as "Mex" ?

Emilie
Port Orchard, WA
----- Original Message -----

Lupe,

I just checked the Ancestry website and found the information about your great-grandfather. The index clearly says Angola. I didn't try to go any further into the website because I'm not a member of Ancestry and do not want to get a membership at this time. Most of my research has been transcribing church and civil records from Aguascalientes, Jalisco, Zacatecas and Nayarit, and exchanging info. with other researchers.

Now that I know your source for your great-grandfather's border crossing and date of birth, I have changed my opinion on the subject. A border crossing in 1921 and dob of 1878 probably has nothing to do with the people that arrived from Angola in the 16th and 17th century. Since I didn't read your first message, I didn't know that you were talking about recent history. You're absolutely right questioning the veracity of that information. It could be a blunder made by the person who transcribed the original records. To find out for sure try to find the

Hola Felipe,

Estoy seguro que el vínculo al que te refieres es real, porque he encontrado referencias en los registros de Aguascalientes que indican que muchos hacendados tenían esclavos originarios de Angola. Sin embargo, esto no tiene nada que ver con el caso del Sr. Cruz Bustamante. El hecho que alguien escribió en su record "Aguascalientes, Angola" es probablemente un error cometido por la persona que hizo el índice que de Ancestry.com. Yo supuse que Lupe se refería a tiempos más antiguos porque no había leído sus correos anteriores.

Bueno, ya que tocamos el tema de los esclavos en México, debo decirte que creo que muchos eran originarios de Angola. He visto en algunos registros que a esclavas negras no bautizadas se les daba como apellido el nombre de su país de origen. Así por ejemplo he encontrado algunas con nombres como María de Angola, Juana Angola, etc. Lo mismo pasaba con los indios. He encontrado a una María Chichimeca, etc. Es probable que así se haya originado