Creating a Database of Records from California Missions, 1769 to 1850

FAIN: PA-50593-04

Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens (San Marino, CA 91108-1299)
Robert C. Ritchie (Project Director: July 2003 to January 2007)

Completion of an electronic database containing information on baptisms, marriages, and other vital records held by California missions between 1769 and 1850.

The Huntington Library is creating for wide dissemination a database of records that are of unique and vital importance to the study of California, the American Southwest, and colonial America. This database project, the Early California Population Project (ECPP), will provide easy and democratic access to all information contained in the California mission registers. These registers record the births, confirmations, marriages, and deaths of more than 100,000 Native Americans, Spaniards, and Anglo-Americans who came within the orbit of the missions between 1769 and 1850. No other region of colonial America has a database of such an extensive set of vital records.