Florida International University Libraries has unveiled an online resource to help families of the Cuban diaspora research their roots—and already several have hit pay dirt.
An extensive set of family trees, civil records and sacramental documents is now available on the Internet. It references thousands of Hispanic surnames and gives everyone from the Abadias to the Zúñigas the opportunity to search for their ancestors. The material comes from the Enrique Hurtado de Mendoza Collection of Cuban Genealogy, a treasure trove that also features hard copies of more than 3,500 17th- and 18th-century books, long out-of-print publications and periodicals that few, if any, other U.S. libraries hold. The online offerings can be accessed by going to FIU’s Digital Library of the Caribbean and searching by last name.
“The breadth and depth of the collection is outstanding,” said Lourdes Del Pino, who helped prepare materials for placing online. “All Cubans, and I mean all Cubans, no matter where you were from, your station in life, every Cuban will find something about their family, I have no doubt.”
The collection was amassed over more than four decades by Felix Enrique Hurtado de Mendoza. Trained as a lawyer, he worked as a diplomat for the Organization of American States, both in Washington, D.C., and Geneva Switzerland. Nearing 90, Hurtado de Mendoza lives in Miami and directed his family to deliver the collection to FIU in 2012.
FIU Special Collections department head Althea Silvera describes Hurtado de Mendoza’s personal quest as driven by “this need to find out where you come from . . . that somewhere, somehow there is something in your background.”
Read the full article at http://news.fiu.edu/2015/06/cuban-equivalent-of-ancestry-com-a-boon-to-family-historians/88594
Thanks to ResearchBuzz for the heads-up.
