Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Genealogy
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 05-19-2017, 08:48 PM
 
1,052 posts, read 1,293,052 times
Reputation: 1549

Advertisements

Hello, I was wondering if anyone could help me get a rough idea of an old Texas (when it was part of Mexico) document in Spanish. I don't know Spanish and it's handwritten, so I might try and make out the letters/words and shove it in a translator but I'm guessing doubling up on errors will make it very slow and hard to get some of the details. Curious if anyone who knows Spanish and is good at reading such documents can give me any idea of the specifics the document is talking about.

Context this is regarding an ancestor of mine, a George Butler who came to Texas somewhere in the early to mid 1830s... There is a certificate of character submitted for him in 1834 and I'm guessing this is the more detailed documentation surrounding him. I'm curious if any interesting or useful details might be gleaned, family information, does it just grant land, does it grant citizenship in Mexico, etc?

Any help would be greatly appreciated
Attached Thumbnails
Help reading/translating old Spanish Texas doc-george-butler-1834-01.jpg   Help reading/translating old Spanish Texas doc-george-butler-1834-02.jpg   Help reading/translating old Spanish Texas doc-george-butler-1834-03.jpg   Help reading/translating old Spanish Texas doc-george-butler-1834-04.jpg  
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 05-20-2017, 12:53 AM
 
1,717 posts, read 1,675,531 times
Reputation: 2203
It's too bad you can't take it to a library /genealogy library / or school / college and see if someone can help you. Maybe donate a bit for the help. I don't speak Spanish but you could try posting on the Mexico forum. ?? Maybe?


You could also call up a Spanish to English Translation - On Google. You type in the text and it translates for you. You should also look up handwriting for that time period and get a feel for it.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-20-2017, 12:55 AM
 
1,717 posts, read 1,675,531 times
Reputation: 2203
I'll look at it tomorrow. Again, I don't speak English but I can read the ABC's. How did you get this copy?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-20-2017, 01:03 AM
 
1,052 posts, read 1,293,052 times
Reputation: 1549
Thanks for the tips. I'm pretty good with reading english cursive old handwriting from this era, though looking at this I realize how much of that is pattern matching, of predicting the words despite gaps I can't tell... Since I don't now many Spanish words it's very hard to accurately pick out every letter. I've started to dig through it a bit and throw words from here into the translator... a lot of text though.

I got it from some genealogy trees. Some of the records exist in english including some after Texas became the Republic of Texas. My ancestor George Butler actually can be found in the Texas handbook

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fbu64

He was a delegate to the Convention of 1832 (where Texans tried to negotiate for things they wanted from Mexico)
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-20-2017, 07:32 AM
 
422 posts, read 517,348 times
Reputation: 716
You might reach out to these folks: https://www.tshaonline.org/home/
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-20-2017, 08:34 AM
 
4,713 posts, read 3,448,826 times
Reputation: 6304
I've copied your images, but don't know if I will be able to see all the words clearly due to the age of the paper. Looks like quite a bit of legalese, but I can translate it. I will need a few days as I have a time crunch for work this weekend and Mon/Tues, if you want me to.

There are many who can easily translate this for you as the quality is not too bad overall. Anyone else you know who reads Spanish?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-20-2017, 09:37 AM
 
Location: 5,400 feet
4,829 posts, read 4,734,398 times
Reputation: 7886
You might also check these sites, but would likely have to pay something. Just note the docs are old enough that they may be in Castilian Spanish.
FAQ’s
New Mexico Translators & Interpreters Association – a non-profit, professional association
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-20-2017, 11:41 AM
 
Location: Austin, TX via San Antonio, TX
9,843 posts, read 13,605,987 times
Reputation: 5701
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alandros View Post

I got it from some genealogy trees. Some of the records exist in english including some after Texas became the Republic of Texas. My ancestor George Butler actually can be found in the Texas handbook

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fbu64

He was a delegate to the Convention of 1832 (where Texans tried to negotiate for things they wanted from Mexico)
Have you contacted the people you snagged the documents from
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-20-2017, 12:34 PM
 
1,717 posts, read 1,675,531 times
Reputation: 2203
I was able to copy and paste it to my desktop and then use zoom. If you are familiar with the handwriting from that time, that's half the translation. The first two pages are easier to look at.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-20-2017, 06:40 PM
 
Location: New Mexico
4,955 posts, read 7,319,511 times
Reputation: 8565
I know Spanish, this is a legal petition on the part of George Butler and his family of four, asking permission to take up residence on land belonging to Lorenzo de Zavala according to the settlement laws of the state. Much of it is faded and hard (or impossible in places) to read, but a lot of it seems taken up with description of the exact boundaries of the land. It is the handwriting and reproduction quality that make it difficult to read most of it. I might be able to squeeze more out of it later.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Genealogy
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top