Discovering my Family History in Spain

My story

About Me

I’m John. I used to be a professor. I spent my career buried in books, teaching young people things they’d forget the second they left my classroom. Now, I spend my time buried in archives, squinting at 300-year-old Spanish script, wondering when my right knee started making that clicking noise and whether I should be worried.

After my wife passed, I needed something to do. And since grief does strange things to a man, I decided the logical next step was to sell everything, move to Madrid, and dig through centuries of paper, chasing the ghosts of my ancestors.

Spanish Genealogy Research and Archive Discoveries

Most family history research starts with a name and a date. In practice, it rarely stays that simple.

Genealogy John follows my ongoing search through Spanish parish records, civil registrations, archive collections, historical newspapers and family documents. Some investigations begin with a single certificate. Others start with a clue hidden in an old photograph, a witness signature, a godparent’s name or a forgotten address.

Along the way I explore the records, methods and unexpected discoveries that shape family history research in Spain. Not every search ends with an answer. Some create more questions than they solve. Those are often the stories that end up here.

The articles on this site cover parish records, civil records, migration within Spain, DNA research, local history, archive visits and the practical challenges of tracing families across generations. Many posts connect to wider investigations that continue over months or even years as new records come to light.

Whether you’re researching Spanish ancestry yourself or simply enjoy the detective work behind genealogy, I hope these notes, discoveries and occasional dead ends prove useful.