With records from several archival sources, Fray Angélico Chávez compiled a genealogy of the Durán y Chaves family of seventeenth-century New Mexico first published Origins of New Mexico Families in 1956 and then again in 1989.1 Since that time, additional research has resulted in revisions and updates to Chávez’s original findings, which are included below.
Although it was originally thought by Chávez that a man named Pedro Gómez Durán, who came to New Mexico in 1600, was the same person as Pedro Durán y Chaves, the progenitor of the Durán y Chaves family of New Mexico, this conclusion proved inaccurate. When Pedro Gómez Durán, also known as Pedro Gómez Rico, came to New Mexico he indicated he was more than fifty years of age (born circa 1550) and identified himself as a native of the Villa de Valverde, Spain, and as a son of Hernán Sánchez Rico. We learn from archival sources that Gómez Durán resided at Mexico City from as early as April 1587 with his wife, Catalina Cabeza, with whom he had several children.2 He lived in New Mexico until his death in 1607 while his wife and children remained in Mexico City.3
By contrast, Pedro Durán y Chaves gave his age as age sixty in January 1626, indicating he was born circa 1566, and declared he was a native of Llerena.4 Although it has been assumed that Llerena refers to the town of this name in Spain, this is not explicitly identified as such in the one known historical reference to his birthplace. Llerena could just as well refer to the mining community of Llerena located near Sombrerete in Nueva Galicia. Furthermore, there is no new evidence that identifies the names of his parents.
Another record informs us that Pedro Durán y Chaves was in New Mexico by 1610, possibly even as early as 1608-1609, but the first historical reference to Pedro Durán y Chaves in New Mexico is from the year 1613.5 Pedro Durán y Chaves was apparently already married in New Mexico by 1609 with doña Isabel de Bohórquez, daughter of Captain Cristóbal Baca and Ana Ortiz, when their eldest child, Fernando, was born. It is certain that this couple resided at the newly established Villa de Santa Fe in 1610 where many years later they were proud to declare they were first settlers of that villa.6
It is possible that Pedro Durán y Chaves was a relative of Pedro Gómez Durán, but there is not yet any documentation to inform us of how they were related. There is a curious pattern in the family of Pedro Gómez Durán of given names that also appear in the Durán y Chaves family of seventeenth-century New Mexico. Gómez Durán was a brother of Licenciado Fernando Sánchez Durán, who served as the curate of the main church in the Villa de Llerena, Spain. These brothers had a first cousin also named Pedro Gómez Durán who was the father of two priests, Licenciado Juan de Chaves and Licenciado Pedro Gómez Durán. The use of the given surnames of Durán and Chaves suggests a familial tie between Pedro Durán y Chaves and Pedro Gómez Durán, and this supposition is further supported by the repeated use of the given names of Fernando and Pedro in the Durán y Chaves family of seventeenth-century New Mexico.
Pedro Durán y Chaves and doña Isabel de Bohórquez were the parents of three known children, all sons:
1. Don Fernando (I) Durán y Chaves, born circa 1609, Villa de Santa Fe, New Mexico.7
2. Don Pedro (II) Durán y Chaves, born circa 1611, New Mexico.8
3. Don Agustín de Chaves, born circa 1626, Villa de Santa Fe, New Mexico.9
Notes:
1. Fray Angélico Chávez, Origin of New Mexico Families in the Spanish Colonial Period, Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, revised edition, 1992, 19-23; and Fray Angélico Chávez, Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, Santa Fe: W. Gannon, 1989.
2. Catálogo de Protocolos del Archivo de Notarias, Ciudad de México, Note. 1, Vol. 168, Obligación de pago, 21 de abril de 1587, Pedro Gómez Durán, witness.
3. Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), México, Inquisición, t. 484, exp. 1, Información de la genealógia de Fray Bartolomé Gómez, Dominico, por cailificador, Ciudad de México, 1617.
4. AGN, Inquisición, t. 356, exp. 133, f. 268r, Contra Don Juan de Eulate: Testimony of Pedro Durán y Chaves, January 30, 1626, Villa de Santa Fe.
5. AGN, México, Inquicisión, t. 316, exp. 2, f. 152r, Relación verdadera que el padre predicador fray Francisco Pérez Guerta, 1617.
6. AGN, México, Inquisición, t. 356, exp. 133, ff. 268 and 301v, Contra Juan de Eulate: Testimonies of Pedro Durán y Chaves and doña Isabel de Bohórquez, 1626.
7. Archivo General de Indias (AGI), Patronato, 244, R.7, f. 97v, Levantamiento Nuevo México, proceder del obispo Palafox, 1644, in which don Fernando Durán y Chaves gave his age as 35, when his testimony in favor of the Franciscans friars of New Mexico was recorded on August 17, 1644, indicating he was born circa 1609.
8. AGI, Patronato, 244, R.7, f. 100v, Levantamiento Nuevo México, proceder del obispo Palafox, 1644, in which don Pedro Durán y Chaves gave his age as 33 when his testimony in favor of the Franciscans friars of New Mexico was recorded on August 18, 1644, indicating he was born circa 1611. In October 1680, don Pedro gave his age as 70, indicating he was born circa 1610. However, on two occasions in 1681, he also gave his age as 70, indicating again that he was born circa 1611, see AGN, Provincias Internas, t. 37, exp. 7, f. 369v, Autos Tocantes al alsamiento de los yndios de la provincial de la Nueba México, and Biblioteca Nacional de México, Archivo Franciscano, caja 20, exp. 436, f. 21r and f. 147v.
9. In 1646, Agustín de Chaves identified himself as a “son of Pedro,” age 20, and a native of the Villa de Santa Fe. Joseph P. Sánchez, Between Two Rivers: The Atrisco Land Grant in Albuquerque History, 1692-1968, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008, 190n7.
Researcher: José Antonio Esquibel.
For additional information on the revised genealogy of the Durán y Chaves family of 17th-century New Mexico, see:
José Antonio Esquibel, "A Case of Mistaken Identities: Pedro Gómez Durán and PEdro Durán y Chaves, in Herencia (Journal of the Hispanic Genealogical Research Center of New Mexico), Vol. 18, Issue 3, July 2010.
José Antonio Esquibel, Genetic Ancestry and Family History: Durán y Chaves, García de Noriega, and Guralé Narratives and Genealogies, 1566-1732," in New Mexico Genealogist, Vol. 61, Issue 4, December 2022.
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Don Fernando Durán y Chaves III (ONMF: 20-21, 160-161) who returned to New Mexico under Governor Vargas identified himself as a son of don Pedro Durán y Chaves, and thus was not a son of the first Fernando Durán y Chaves as originally documented in Origins of New Mexico Families. The following translation of a document dated 28 October 1692 at Mejía in New Mexico and part of the original documents pertaining to the Atrisco land grant provides this valuable genealogical data: "Don Fernando de Chaves requests ….the tract is also on the Rio Grande, commonly called Atrisco, also of agricultural land with its acequia madre and this one in from the bluff where there is an old house in which Juan de Perea lived going down the riverside as far as some corrals which Colonel Juan Domínguez, my brother-in-law, had and on said tract my father, Don Pedro Durán y Chaves, lived and also some other persons by permission." Don Fernando Durán y Chaves III married doña Lucía Hurtado, daughter of Andrés Hurtado and doña Bernardina de Salas y Orozco Trujillo.
Researchers: Gerald Mandell and Margaret Buxton
Sources: Spanish Archives of New Mexico, Series I, Roll 37, frs. 727-728 (U.S. Surveyor General Records, Court of Private Land Claims, Atrisco Land Grant); Margaret Buxton, The Other Luna Family, privately published.
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Gertrudis Chaves (ONMF: 163), wife of Francisco Silva (ONMF: 289), was not a daughter of Nicolás Durán y Chaves as documented in Origins of New Mexico Families. Prior to marriage, Nicolás had a son, Juan José, by Juana Montaño. While traveling out of New Mexico, Juana Montaño had given birth to a boy christened Nicolás and was pregnant with her third child, Gertrudis, when Nicolás returned to New Mexico. Nicolás, the younger, and Gertrudis, natural children of Juana Montaño, were said to have been fathered by "a decent man named Urbán." Nicolás Durán y Chaves was forced to marry Juana Montaño.
This information comes from the testimony of Antonio Chaves, half-brother of Gertrudis Chaves, given during the pre-marital investigation of José Manuel Silva and María Josefa Silveria Sánchez.
Researcher: John B. Colligan
Sources: Archivos Históricos del Arzobispado de Durango (AHAD)-30, f. 56-71, DM 14 April 1778-13 March 1779, Isleta; and Rick Hendricks, ed. & John B. Colligan, compiler, New Mexico Prenuptial Investigations From the Archivos Históricos del Arzobispado de Durango, 1760-1799, Rio Grande Historical Collections, New Mexico State University Library, 1996: 38-39.
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Francisco Chaves (most likely Francisco Durán y Chaves who was the husband of Juana Baca) was baptized at Guadalupe del Paso on 21 December 1681, and was a son of don Fernando de Chaves and doña Luisa (sic Lucía) de Salazar. His padrinos were Bartolomé Gómez and doña Teresa Varela.
Researchers: Walter V. McLaughlin and John B. Colligan
Sources: Walter V. McLaughlin, Texas Western College, August 1962 (University of Texas at El Paso Library); and John B. Colligan, "Spanish Surnames Found in the First Book of Baptisms of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe del Paso del Río del Norte.
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Miguel Chaves (ONMF: 162), son of Antonio Durán y Chaves and Antonia Baca, was married in the Castrense Military Chapel of Nuestra Señora de la Luz with Antonia Gertrudis Santistevan on 10 October 1745, rather than the year 1754 noted in Origins of New Mexico Families (p. 162). The couple was veiled and their sponsors were Andrés Montoya and Ana Baca.
The 1750 census of the Villa de Albuquerque gives approximate years of birth for Miguel and his wife, and names three of their eldest children:
Miguel Chaves, Spanish, 28; wife, Gertrudis Santistevan Coronel, Spanish, 18; three children: María Rosa, 4; Jph Franco, 2; Miguel Anto, 9 mos.
Forty years later, in 1790, this couple was enumerated as residents of the plaza of Los
Chaves:
Miguel Chaves, Spanish, 68, farmer; m. Gertrudis Santistevan, Spanish, 57; six sons: 25, 23, 20, 16, 14, 8; three daughters: 26, 21, 19; 1 grandson: 8
Researcher: Gloria Estrada McCrary
Sources: AASF, Roll #31 (or New Mexico Marriages Santa Fe - St. Francis Parish and Military Chapel of our Lady of Light (La Castrense) 1728 – 1857, extracted by Roybal and Pfeufer, p. 13); Virginia L. Olmsted, Spanish and Mexican Censuses of NM 1750-1830, New Mexico Genealogical Society, 82 (family # 125); Olmsted, Spanish and Mexican Censuses 1790, 1823, 1845, New Mexico Genealogical Society, 37 (family # 683).