Locating Catholic Church Records in New Mexico
Lea County

County:
Lea County was created on March 7, 1917 from the southeastern part of Chaves County. It was named for Confederate Army General Joseph Calloway Lea. The Lea County courthouse address is P.O. Box 1507, Lovington, NM 88260. Phone (505) 396-8531; FAX (505) 396-2093.

Diocese: This county is in the Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces. Almost all of the records are in the individual parishes, except that records over 100 years old are housed at the Archives of the Diocese in Las Cruces. See Records for the sources and addresses known to date.

Published records:
New Mexico Genealogist: Since its first issue in 1962, the Genealogist has been publishing a continuous stream of county, state, and church records as well as other informative articles. Available:
1) a CD containing every issue published in the first forty years of publication:  See NMG-CD.
2) a printed topic index 1962-1999: Book #E4b at NMGS Press.
3) An index for each current year is provided within the Genealogist in that year's December issue.
4) There are also some articles from the Genealogist being published on this web site. For a list, see Genealogist online.

Most Catholic church records are available on microfilm, and volunteers have extracted, translated, and published many of those records with indexes. Click on the links below to see which other books are already available from these two societies:

Assistance:
Due to the volume of incoming mail, this webmaster is not able to answer online research questions. Instead, please try our extensive link section. Two other volunteer groups are New Mexico GenWeb and New Mexico Ancestors. Both are linked to larger networks of sites covering the entire state of New Mexico.

To the best of our knowledge, the information presented here is accurate and up to date. If you have corrections or additions to contribute, please add the words "Catholic Church Project" in the subject line, include your source reference, and email to: info@nmgs.org.  Locating Catholic Church Records in New Mexico is a work-in-progress and the pages will be updated as additional information is received.

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