Rodríguez de Salazar

Sebastián Rodríguez de Salazar and Luisa Díaz are mentioned very briefly in Chávez’s Origins of New Mexico Families (ONMF, 95). Chávez extracted a record from 1626 in which Capitán Sebastián Rodríguez de Salazar gave his age as forty-four (b.ca. 1582). Sebastián and his wife were married at Santa Catalina Martir Church in Mexico City on February 23, 1607. The names of their parents were not given in the record. However, the occupation of Sebastián was recorded as “letter carrier attached in the squadron of Ambrosio Martín at Santa Ana.” The official witnesses to the marriage were Francisco Nieto, Estévan Martín, and a man named Melchor whose surname is illegible in the record. The presiding priest was Bachiller Rodrigo Martín.

Sebastian Rodrigez en beinte y tres de febrero de seis cientos y siete

Luisa dias— años depose y case yo el bhr Alonso gutieRes mon

des Pasados taño con lisencia de los senores curas A sebastian

y Velados rrodriges cartero q. desposa en santana en quadrilla

de ambrosio martin con luisa dias. testigos Fra^co nieto

y melchor de maturana y esteban martin

Br. Rodrigo Martin

Source: Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico City, Santa Catalina Church, Matrimonios 1589-1671, LDS #0036027 f. 98r.

Sebastián Rodríguez de Salazar and Luisa Díaz were living in New Mexico by 1626. In a record from 1630, there is a passing reference to Alférez Sebastián Rodríguez, age 44 (b.ca. 1586) and his wife, Luisa Díaz (Archivo General de la Nación, Inquicisión, t. 356, f. 265v and f. 271r).

On April 22, 1662, Captain Francisco Pérez Granillo, a vecino of the jurisdiction of the Convento of the Pueblo of Socorro, declared he was married with doña Sebastiana Romero de Salazar. Pérez Granillo mentioned Luisa Díaz de Betanzos, the grandmother of his wife, and also mentioned his suegra (mother-in-law), doña Isabel de Salazar (AGN, Inquicisión, t. 593, ff. 320-21: April 22, 1662, Socorro). This information provides the extended version of the surname of Luisa Díaz and indicates that she and Sebastián Rodriguez de Salazar were the parents of at least one child. Doña Isabel de Salazar was the wife of Agustín Romero (Esquibel, “The Romero Family of Seventeenth-Century New Mexico, Part 1, in Herencia, Vol. 11, Issue 1, January 2003, 1-30).

At the Convento of the Pueblo of Socorro, on April 30, 1662, Luisa Díaz de Betanzos y Castro declared she was a native of Mexico City, a widow of about age 80 (b.ca. 1582), and a vecina of the jurisdiction of Socorro. In this testimony, doña Isabel de Salazar was specifically referred to as "hija de esta declarante, "“daughter of this declarant” (AGN, Inquicisión, t. 593, f. 327r).

Researcher: José Antonio Esquibel and Henrietta Martinez Christmas. Originally published in the April 2009 issues of Herencia, the Journal of the Hispanic Genealogical Research Center of New Mexico.

Sources: Provided in the narrative.