University Archives in México: Manuscripts, Photos, and Theses, Oh my!

Key points and insights

University archives in Mexico hold far more than student records and campus history; they can be goldmines for family historians. This webinar with Lisa Medina reveals how these institutions preserve manuscripts, photographs, theses, rare books, newspapers, maps, and even court and parish records that rarely appear in mainstream genealogical databases. Using concrete examples from universities across Mexico, the presentation demonstrates how these collections can illuminate ancestors’ communities, occupations, migrations, and everyday lives—especially in regions where civil or church registers are incomplete or offline.

• Smart search strategies using Spanish and archival terminology
  The webinar emphasizes that success begins with the right vocabulary. Viewers learn to build effective Google searches in Spanish—combining universidad plus a state or city with terms such as archivo histórico, acervo documental, biblioteca, hemeroteca, mapoteca, and fototeca. Medina also explains how to recognize and exploit key words on university sites—catálogos, inventarios, guías—and even addresses practical hurdles such as access blocks for users outside Mexico and how a VPN may sometimes help.

• Understanding what kinds of records exist—and why they matter
  A central portion of the session walks through the main categories of material genealogists can tap: dissertations and theses with rich local histories and bibliographies; special collections containing personal papers, letters, oral histories, and deposited government or judicial archives; digitized books and university publications; and unique runs of local newspapers, maps, and photo collections. Real examples—from multi-thousand-page judicial inventories to gazetteer-style place-name studies and oral history projects—illustrate how these sources can reveal relationships, property boundaries, migration stories, and community context without ever opening a traditional parish register.

• Leveraging institutional and student records for family history
  The webinar also showcases the power of university-generated archives themselves: historic student files, disciplinary cases, administrative series, and institutional photo and map libraries. Databases from universities such as Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Durango, and UNAM show how fully digitized collections can provide high-resolution images of student dossiers, land surveys, cadastral maps, and city plans—often searchable by surname, place, or topic and sometimes representing the only accessible copy of the material.

Genealogists researching in Mexico—or wanting to expand beyond the usual civil and parish records—are encouraged to watch the full webinar to see these techniques and examples in action. The live demonstrations of searching, navigating Spanish-language interfaces, and interpreting catalogs and inventories offer practical skills that can be immediately applied to any Mexican research project. After viewing, exploring the additional resources in the syllabus—including curated links, tools, and terminology—will help transform these ideas into a personalized, targeted strategy for uncovering hidden ancestral stories within Mexico’s university archives.