Record Atlas
8 eras · 1563–2026 · 30 places

Madrid and its province

Madrid, El Escorial, San Agustín del Guadalix. Which empire held this ground in which years — and, the part that matters, which archive that means.

Whose archive this ground was

YearsWho held itWhose archive that means
1563–1808 Crown of Castile — the Spanish monarchy FamilySearch · PARES

Parish registers run from the Council of Trent (FamilySearch gives 1545 and 1563); most registers over 100 years old were moved to the archive of the parish's diocese. Madrid's territory belonged to the archdiocese of Toledo, so look in Toledo's records too.
1808–1814 Spain under Joseph Bonaparte — Peninsular War FamilySearch · PARES

Joseph Bonaparte's reign is dated from June or August 1808 depending on the source, to 11 December 1813; the Peninsular War ended on 17 April 1814. An 1810 Napoleonic division of Spain into 84 prefectures is recorded.
1814–1833 Kingdom of Spain — monarchy restored FamilySearch · PARES

The war ended on 17 April 1814 and the Bourbon monarchy was restored; the 1822 division of Spain into provinces, made in the Trienio Liberal, was the predecessor of the 1833 one.
1833–1871 Kingdom of Spain — Province of Madrid FamilySearch · PARES

Madrid became a province by the royal decree of 30 November 1833, in Castilla la Nueva.
1871–1931 Kingdom of Spain — civil registration FamilySearch · PARES

Civil registration is dated from 1871 (FamilySearch's church-records page says 1869), with some municipalities holding records from as early as 1837; the records are still in each municipality's archive, and certificates are requested through the Ministerio de Justicia. The diocese of Madrid-Alcalá, split from Toledo, dates from 1884 or 1885 depending on the source.
1931–1939 Second Republic — Madrid in the Republican zone FamilySearch · PARES

Madrid stayed with the Republic after the July 1936 coup, with the Guadarrama front to its north holding until 1939; Casado's coup began on 5 March 1939 and Nationalist troops entered Madrid without further fighting on 28 March. FamilySearch notes record loss in the Civil War without listing registers. An inventory of one archdiocese (Valencia) put the gap mostly before 1871, so check each parish's diocesan archive.
1939–1978 Spain — Franco's State, then the transition to the 1978 Constitution FamilySearch · PARES

Franco announced the end of the war on 1 April 1939, days after Madrid fell.
1978–2026 Spain — 1978 Constitution FamilySearch · PARES

On 23 July 1991 the archdiocese of Madrid ceded territory to create the dioceses of Alcalá de Henares and Getafe, so a parish in the province may now answer to any of the three.

The rings are approximate — deliberately. They exist to shade which filing system a place fell under, not to adjudicate a border. A place near a ring's edge should be checked against both neighbours.

See the whole span, 1563–2026, on the map →

The map takes a range, and a range that crosses one of the rows above is where records get lost: the family never moved, and the archive on the far side of the handover will tell you it holds nothing.

30 places on this ground

47 FamilySearch collections reach this ground

Ranked with the regional ones first — a collection for a province is usually a better lead than a national index, though the national index is often where a name is actually written down. A free account opens the images.

All record regions · The map