Follow our four-point plan of attack to trace your roots in
Spain, Portugal and the Basque region. Since ancient times, the
Iberian peninsula—encompassing Spain, Portugal, and the long-
contested Basque country—has been coveted and conquered by the
Romans, Germanic tribes, Arabs, Holy Roman Empire and Napoleon.
For genealogists today, tracing your ancestry in the Iberian
region is a conquest with its own challenges: language barriers,
decentralized records, lagging digitization and state takeovers
of church registers, among others. But those obstacles aren’t
insurmountable—technological weapons can help you break down
language barriers, records access is gradually improving, and
the reward for tackling Spanish, Portuguese or Basque records
likely will be well worth the struggle: The area’s church and
notarial records in particular are some of the world’s richest
genealogical treasures. Follow these four steps for your own
successful assault on the formidable peninsula.