Moya Family in Mexico

At least one line of the Moya family in Mexico begins with the arrival of my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Martín Ildefonso Moya in the latter half of the XVII century.  Martín Moya was a native of the Kingdom of Castille (by that time El Reino de Castilla y León), corresponding roughly to the large swath of territory to the northwest of Madrid, bounded by Portugal in the west and Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, The Basque Country, and La Rioja in the north.  He married María Aguilar, and eventually settled in Santa Elena, in what is today the dry, arid, north-central Mexican state of Chihuahua, which runs up to the American border.  There his son Juan Antonio ("Juan") was born, likely sometime in the early 1690s.  Today Santa Elena is a small rancho due west of the city of Camargo, in the narrow valley of the Conchos River.

On April 25, 1716, Juan Moya registered a plot of land for a house of twenty square varas (a unit of measure slightly less than one meter) next to the house of Salvador de Loya in Hidalgo del Parral.

Juan Antonio Moya Aguilar
Land Register, 1716
(Archivo Municipal del Hidalgo del Parral)

The Moya family would ultimately come to settle in Valle de San Bartolomé (today known as Valle de Allende), originally founded as a mission by Franciscan priests in 1569, where they would reside for the next ~250 years.  One June 11, 1725, Juan Moya married M. Josefa Herrera Zapién, born February 13, 1708 in Valle de Allende to José Herrera and Petronila Zapién.  By this time, Juan's parents, Martín and María, had passed away, although it is not known when or where.  The couple would go on to have at least 8 children, the seventh of which, Juan Antonio (known as "Juan Antonio", unlike his father), was born in ~1741.

Juan Antonio Moya Aguilar
Marriage Record, 1725
(FamilySearch)

On January 28, 1771, Juan Antonio married Rita Bonifacia Esparza Hernández, born May 23, 1741 in Valle de Allende to J. Manuel Maximiliano Esparza and M. Rosa Hernández, both described in the marriage record as mulatos libres, most likely freed individuals with some African ancestry.  This is in contrast to the Moya family -- specifically Juan Antonio -- who as far as I can tell had up to this point only intermarried with other families of "pure" Spanish descent.  Juan Antonio and Rita had at least 6 children between 1772 and 1780, all born in Valle de Allende.  The fourth, J. Manuel María de la Luz Pascacio ("Manuel"), was born May 17, 1776.  Juan Antonio died sometime before May 1810, when he is listed as deceased on a son's marriage record; Rita lived passed October 1818, when she is listed as the godmother on the baptismal record of one of her granddaughters.  

On May 18, 1795, Manuel married M. Josefa Sotomayor.  This couple had at least 6 children into the beginning of the XIX century, although I have only been able to locate the baptismal records of four of them.  Manuel became the rayador 'accountant' at Valsequillo, a hacienda some 20 kilometers nearly due south of Valle de Allende on a tributary of the Florido River, which feeds the Conchos mentioned above.  Manuel died between 1826 and 1833, when at the later time he is listed as deceased on his daughter Guadalupe's marriage record.

Manuel Moya Esparza
Accounts, Hacienda de Valsequillo, 1799
(Archivo Municipal del Hidalgo del Parral)

One of Manuel and Josefa's sons, Encarnación, was born in ~1799 in Valle de Allende.  On September 12, 1827, he married M. Juana Nepomucena Rodríguez Ronquillo ("Juana"), daughter of Antonio Rodríguez and M. Úrsula Ronquillo, born in ~1804 in Satevó, a community some distance to the northwest of Valle de Allende.  They had at least 4 children, and one of the youngest, Mauro, was born in ~1842 in Valle de Allende.  (The granddaughter of one of Mauro's brothers, Francisco, is Francisca Ernestina Moya Luna (1900-1986), also known as "Nellie Campobello", the famous Mexican writer.)  It is in this generation that the Moya family began to move away from Valle de Allende.  The three eldest of the children I have located were married there, but Mauro married M. Adelaida Guadalupe Villa Santiesteban ("Guadalupe") in Hidalgo del Parral, the largest city in the region due west of Valle de Allende, on November 29, 1866.  

Guadalupe Villa Santiesteban
(photo from Marco Aurelio Moya Reyes)

Many lines of Guadalupe's family trace their ancestry back to XVII-century Parral itself -- founded in 1631 following a silver strike -- and not to neighboring Valle de Allende.  Mauro & Guadalupe would go on to have 11 children, 6 of whom lived to adulthood, and one of whom is my great-great-grandfather, J. Atenedoro Mauro ("Mauro"), born October 18, 1871.  Mauro (Sr.) died young -- at 49 from heart disease -- on February 6, 1891.  Guadalupe lived only to 56, dying on May 2, 1901 from pneumonia.

Moya Family Migrations
Chihuahua, Mexico