RICHARD FISKE wrote: > > I would like to start to record my wife's family history and would like to > know > which archives and records exist. Are their any online resources? > Have any books been written on the subject? > What experiences have you had? > That's a good URL that was given by winddancer. I just got another friend involved in his Filipino genealogy. I started back in '90 and went to the LDS' Family History Center and began ordering films there. I was able to pull 297 names on my paternal grandmother's side, but this was only by doing those relatives who carried her surnames, the Puertos. Not Filipino with a Spanish surname. Here's an excerpt taken from: http://buhiclaveria.tripod.com/ DURING the early years of Spanish colonization, the indigenous people of what now is the Philippines were converted to Roman Catholicism and eventually forced to take either Spanish names or the names of saints for their first names. The native's names did not favor the ignorant ears and indolent tongues of the Spanish invaders. Governor General (1844-1849) Narciso Claveria y Zaldua went a step further. He issued on 21st November 1849 an executive edict compelling native and immigrant families to adopt Spanish surnames. A more capricious scheme then was the imposition on non-Spaniards to use surnames indexed according to their place or residence. For example, natives of the town of Baao, Camarines Sur were assigned family names starting with the letter "B" or those from Oas, Albay the letter "R." There's more on the net you could look about the surname acquisition in the Philippines. The book that was helpful in tracing my Filipino ancestry was called "Tracing your Philippine Ancestors". I believe the last name of the author was Vance. My friend borrowed it online. How he even found out about that book w/o me telling him I can't even tell you. It's a 3 volume book. The first volume tells you how to trace it, what to expect, etc. The 2nd volume focuses on each province, when it came to existence, etc. The 3rd volume I think lists all the churches and when each church began their records. All of my research was done through the catholic churches which the Family History Center has on microfilm plus other records like naturalization and some military records. They probably have more depending on which province you are searcing. That book I mentioned will be helpful as to what to expect and clues as to how to do your search. I really didn't find much over the internet except to bridge gaps between distant relatives. Here's what I did on my family if you're thinking of a way to present it. I've seen many other pages. All of them good too! http://home.earthlink.net/~motuahina/ohana1.html And also my genealogy: http://home.earthlink.net/~motuahina/kuauhau.html Kalani [email protected]