by Moises Garza

November 21, 2011

Last Names of Nuevo Leon

When doing my research into South Texas Land Grants and Land titles the terms “leguas” and “varas” would show up very often in most documents. Since till this day the Porciones are still mentioned on land titles as they have been mentioned in such documents since they were granted by the king of Spain. In a nut shell I found the following chart on wikipidia.com that will help us bring into context all those Spanish Measurement terms. I noted the Castillian system since it is the most important one.

Castilian system of units

Spanish

English

Length in pie

Length in SI Units

U.S. Units

punto

11728

0.1613 mm

0.00635 in

línea

1144

1.935 mm

.0762 in

pulgada

inch

112

23.22 mm

.9142 in

pie

1

27.86 cm

10.969 in

vara

yard

3

0.8359 m

32.909 in

paso

5

1.3932 m

54.850 in

legua

15,000

4.1795 km

2.597 mi

Vara Measurements differ by locality:

1 Vara (Texas-Spanish) = 33 1/3 inches (as decided by the first Texas Land Commissioner)
1 Vara (Southern Colorado) 32.993 inches
1 Vara (Florida) 33.372 inches

I put an emphasis on “varas” because they are the type of measurement that is widely used in these documents as you all will see once I start transcribing some of them.

Sources:

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About the author 

Moises Garza

I have doing my family genealogy since 1998. I am also the creator of this blog We Are Cousins, and the Mexican Genealogy blog. To always be up to date with both of these sites follow me on Facebook. To contact me or book me for a presentation, buy my books, and or learn more about me visit my personal website at www.moisesgarza.com.

Books to Help You Grow Your Family Tree

Cavazos-Last-Names-of-Nuevo-Leon
De-Leon-Last-Names-of-Nuevo-Leon-400px
Guerra-Last-Names-of-Nuevo-Leon-446x612
Hinojosa-Last-Names-of-Nuevo-Leon-400px

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