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Search of the Church of the Latter-Day-Saints Records

Sometime ago, a correspondence from Canada had suggested getting hold of microfilms of the ecclesiastical and civil records of the Philippines, which the Church of the Latter-Day Saints had made in the 1970's. Arriving from the overseas trip, I was informed that the copy of the microfilm I had ordered for the Church records of Balagtás, Bulacán had arrived at the Latter-Day Saints Family History Center. They covered the dates from June 28, 1732 to June 27, 1877. My aim in looking at the Balagtás Church records was to find out the connection between my maternal Mág-isa clan with the Mág-isá people of Balagtás. As mentioned before, there was the story of a maternal ancestor, Pioquinto de los Reyes Mág-isá, who had fled Balagtás to evade the Church and government authorities and ended up in Pulilan where he started the clan. My research in Pulilan Church records led to the discovery of his baptismal record showing his parents, which proved that he had been in Pulilan all the time. Whether it was someone else who had left Balagtás for Pulilan I was hoping to find out.

The Balagtás microfilm was a mine of information on the Vergara and Mág-isá clans of the town but what I was looking for was not there. Five hours weekly for three months were spent looking at the records written in Spanish. The microfilm contained 12 books of baptismal summaries, 2 books of marriage summaries and 8 books of interment summaries. It was a long, tedious process that required patience and close attention as some records had already or were badly deteriorated although the majority were very nicely written (in Spanish).

Although there were other microfilms for Bálágtas, I decided to order two microfilms for Plaridél (or Quingwa), Bulacán, which covered the years 1680-1730, 1755-1767 and 1774-1819. The parish of Pulilan, my hometown, was under that of Plaridel until 1790. I hoped some light on my ancestral records would be shed. The records were in worse condition than those of Balgtás. Many pages were tattered, torn and loose. There were plenty of water marks and writing was faded. The microfilms were made in 1976. If the condition of the records was bad then, they must be in worse condition now (2002) after 26 years. No wonder when I went to Plaridél last year I was not allowed to have a look at them. They were being kept in a safe place until they could be treated with chemicals to save them by the Bulacán Historical Society. The record-keeper revealed to me that relations of a previous parish priest had used some books as pillows when they were staying in the convent! Despite the time and effort in looking at the microfilm records, I did not find any relevant information concerning either Vergara or Mág-isá of Pulilan.

I decided to turn my attention to the records of Apalit and I ordered the microfilm of baptismal records dated from 1881 to 1902. There were heaps of information on the Vergara clan of Apalit, and hopefully they will be connected to the current records of the Vergaras of Apalit. Although I had officially looked at the actual Church records of Pulilan, I ordered the microfilm from the book of baptisms from 1860 to 1882. Although they would not reveal anymore on my known earliest ancestors, the records were still relevant. It was easy to trace the descendants and pedigree of male descendants .

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