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With the publication of the book, “Una Familia Mas Noble y Antigua: A Preliminary Study of the Asturian Ancestry of Capitán Francisco Montes Vigil of New Mexico” (privately published, 2016), Brent Alexander Cruz aptly demonstrates through credible sources that Francisco Montes Vigil (b. 1665 – d. 1731), who settled New Mexico in 1695 with his wife and children, is one of innumerable descendants of several noble families of the kingdoms of León y Castilla.
A genealogical connection to two medieval families of Asturias, the Quiros-Quijada and the Miranda-Ponce de León, provides the link to Alonso IX (b. 1171 – d. 1230), king of León y Castilla.
With Alonso IX and his second wife, Berengaria de Castilla, various lineage extend to numerous medieval royal and noble houses of Europe.
Francisco Montes Vigil, a native of Zacatecas, arrived in New Mexico in February 1695 with his wife, María Jiménez Anciso, and children. Today, this couple is well-known as common ancestors for many people with deep Hispanic roots in New Mexico.
The 2005 article by Marietta Vigil Gonzales, José Antonio Esquibel, and Juan Díaz Álvarez titled “Los Argüelles, A.D. 1350 – A.D. 1600: Ancestors of the Montes Vigil Family of New Mexico,” presented the 1573 last will and testament of Lope de Argüelles, the third-great-grandfather of Francisco Montes Vigil. In this will, Lope, a resident of Vega de Poja in Asturias (now northern Spain), proudly named his immediate ancestors. In particular, he identified his mother, doña María de Quiros, as the granddaughter of “Diego de Miranda, Señor de la Casa de Miranda.”
After reading that article, Cruz was inspired to research the Montes Vigil and Argüelles family ancestries. It was in 2012 that he came across published information about the Argüelles family genealogy in one of the volumes of ‘Asturias Ilustrada: Primitivo Origen de la Nobleza de España, su Antigüedad, y Diferencias, con la Descendencia Sucessiva de las Principales Familias del Reyno,” compiled and written by José Manuel Trelles Villademoros and published in 1760.
The information Cruz read in this book matched what was published in the 2005 on the Montes Vigil ancestors. This was because Trelles Villademoros had consulted the same last will and testament of Lopé de Argüelles more than two centuries earlier and extracted the same information.
What Cruz found in the multi-volume set of “Asturias Ilustrada” spurred him to find and read other credible published books and articles, mainly by Spanish scholars.
Cruz writes, “After this discovery, my research became a joy, as I read every volume in “Asturias Ilustrada” line by line and made details outlines before putting together a chart tracing all the connections made to ancestors of the Vigil family. Once I had these preliminary charts, I turned to other ancient Spanish lineage books that were available online, tracked down the more obscure titles via interlibrary loan, and made use of the vast amount of Spanish medieval genealogical material that was available on the Internet.”
Cruz’s book is titled “A Preliminary Study” because the main body of the book consists of genealogy charts based on credible published sources. Cruz is meticulous about indicating his sources on the 77 charts and he provides an extensive bibliography at the end of the book.
In addition to an overview narrative of what led him to conduct the research and compile the material for the book, Cruz provides a brief summary of the research on the Montes Vigil family of New Mexico conducted by several genealogical researchers since the 1950s, beginning with the 1954 publication of “Origins of New Mexico Families in the Spanish Colonial Era” by Fray Angélico Chávez.
Brent Alexander Cruz’s book is an exciting addition to the ongoing research into genealogy of the Montes Vigil family.
For anyone who traces one or more family lineages to Francisco Montes Vigil, “Una Familia Mas Noble y Antigua” is an important reference.
This book is an excellent guide to genealogical and historical sources documenting an ancient ancestry that includes more than a few notable historical figures, in particular numerous monarchs, male and female, that reigned in Europe from the 5th century A.D. to the 11th century AD.
Cruz acknowledges, “It is inevitable that many of the connections in this book will need to be updated in the years to come as more and more of the current research into original sources becomes widely accessible to genealogists.”
This is a very important point because the information in this book is based on published sources.
The next step is to identify, catalogue, and acquire copies of the primary records that confirm the genealogical connection up to the point of the widely accepted genealogy of Alonso IX and Berengaria de Castilla.
When that is accomplished, an effort can be made to have Francisco Montes Vigil officially confirmed as a “gateway ancestor” to medieval royalty.
If you happen to be a descendant of Francisco Montes Vigil, do your best to keep your head from swelling with grandiose thoughts about of having royal ancestors. Francisco Montes Vigil was not a nobleman. He held no title of Spanish nobility.
As the research by Rick Hendricks and Robert D. Martínez has shown, based on primary documents, Francisco Montes Vigil was a natural son of Juan Montes Vigil, native of Mexico City, and an Indian woman, and thus Francisco was a mestizo.
Although Francisco’s social standing in Spanish society as a mestizo and a child born out of wedlock could have been an impediment, he clearly had an aptitude for achievement and leadership as an adult, which he exhibited as a settler of New Mexico and frontier soldier, gaining the rank of captain.
Francisco and his wife, María Jiménez Anciso —herself part Spanish, part Indian, and part African— had eight children through whom they became the progenitors of the Montes Vigil family of New Mexico, a family that eventual shortened its surname to Vigil.
by José Antonio Esquibel
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