Finding Aid
Colonial Census Records
Civil and military census records from Nueva Vizcaya and northern New Spain, 1649–1864. Padrón and padrón militar documents covering household composition, caste designations, occupations, and family relationships.
Documents by decade
Each bar = one decade.
About this collection
Colonial censuses from northern New Spain document the population of missions, presidios, haciendas, and towns across what is now Chihuahua, Durango, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and the American Southwest. Civil padrón records enumerate households with names, ages, caste designations (Español, Mestizo, Indio, Mulato, and others), marital status, and occupations. Military rosters (padrón militar) list presidio soldiers, weapons inventories, and their families.
The collection spans from early colonial settlement through the mid-19th century, with the largest concentration in the 1770s–1820s. Notable collections include the 1777 Valle de San Bartolomé padrón (6,800+ individuals, full-text searchable), thirteen 1778 censuses from different communities, and a complete set of 1818 military rosters from Chihuahua presidios.
Each document links directly to the digitized PDF. Where a document has embedded searchable text, it is marked as full-text searchable in the search results.