Following the initial voyages of Cristóbal Colón to the new world which he called, Las Indias, in the mistaken belief that he had come upon territories that were part of India, all persons wishing to travel to and/or to settle in these overseas territories( also known as Ultramar ) were required to apply for and be granted a license. The Archivo General de Indias (AGI) in Seville, Spain has custody of all surviving correspondence and records related to Las Indias including the licenses and the passenger lists called, Libros de Asientos -- literally the Books of Seats.

In 1980 the AGI published a book called, "Catalago De Pasajeros a Indias: Siglos XVI, XVII, y XVIII, Volumen V." This volume is comprised of two books, Tomo I (1567-1574 and Tomo II 1575-1577. Luis Romera Iruela and Maria de Carmen Galbis Diez compiled the information in it. To date, this is the only published index of passengers. However, the LDS church has microfilmed the actual Libros de Asientos for the period of 1509-1701 and the microfilm numbers, are as follows.

Years

The following is a list of 75 passengers to Puerto Rico only that was extracted from the Catalogo de Pasajeros a Indias for the ten year period between, 1567 and 1577. It would be logical that there were many more Puerto Rico passengers but these all that are listed. The index, in most cases records the name of the passenger, place of birth marital status, title, rank or occupation, the names of his or her parents and the date of travel. Some also list the names of the wife and children if any who accompany the traveler.

The Spanish surname system (father's surname first, mother's surname second) did not take hold until the late 18th century. Prior to that era people could take whatever surname in whatever order one wished and even a surname that did not belong to either parent. Readers should not assume that simply because they share a surname with one or more of the passengers listed that there is a blood relationship. As experienced genealogists know, a relationship can best be proved through corroborating documents that show a generation by generation linkage.