Navigating Dominican Republic’s Archive Website ~ Archivo General de la Nacion – Part 6 – Bernando Vega Collection

So now I want to speak to the Bernardo Vega Collection.  Basically he was a historian of Dominican Republic’s history.  When you click on the link, it will open a new window which provides a brief description.  To save you time, I copied the entire page and dropped it into Google Translate.

 
Below is what it states without me editing anything. From glancing at it, the translation looks great.

This collection is the result of over 30 years of research and documentary compilation by the historian Bernardo Vega files United States, Britain and Dominican Republic. Is a collection of first order to know and understand the Dominican history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The cataloging and digitization project started on August 31, 2006 with the signing of an agreement between the Dominican Cultural Foundation, the Global Democracy and Development Foundation and the General Archives of the Nation. The documentation refers specifically to diplomatic relations between Dominican Republic and countries like the United States, Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela and England.

This digital collection contains information on the first republican governments, the first American intervention (1916-1924), the government of Horacio Vásquez (1924-1930), the dictatorship of Rafael L. Trujillo (1930-1961), the State Council ( 1962), the government of Juan Bosch (1963), the Triumvirate (1964-1965), Civil War (1965) and the first years of the government of Joaquin Balaguer. Also documentation on trade matters as patent laws, tariffs, import, export and maritime trade and the Dominican-American Convention of 1907 and 1924. It consists of a variety of document types including include: correspondence, offices reports, inventories, interviews, appointments, conventions and treaties. In addition, books and newspapers and magazines.

176 microfilms and 158 boxes of paper documents were digitized. The product of this technical work resulted in a total of 29.104 and 199.795 chips image description. The descriptions and the associated image bank, may be freely consulted by an automated program publicly accessible online. Users who make use of this document should cite the source.

So basically Bernando Vega’s dedicated work is now available for all of us to use at no charge. The records mentioned in the above translations means that these records are available for you to go through online.  The documents available will assist you in navigating through records in search of your ancestors by providing the ability of knowing what impacts your ancestor during a certain period of time.  To access the search engine to view these digitized images, click on the button available at the bottom; “Biblioteca”.

Now when you arrive to the new screen, do not be intimidated. There are quite a few things on here but remember that Google Translator provides you the ability to determine what you’re seeing on the screen.  The search doesn’t work like Google does using keyword phrases. Instead you have to be precise.  

I recommend that before you start to type that you check all the boxes when searching below the search box.  This will save a lot of time in your search. So for example, if you descend from Rafael Estrella Ureña or even share a last name with this individual, I recommend that you type in his name.  You can even come across his name by simply searching on the town of La Vega.  You’ll discover many documents with his name.  Click on any one of them to view the individual search item that appears.

When you click, it will open up the description. The result views are a little clunky and you won’t be able to scroll completely down; hoping they correct that to make it compatible with all browsers. Notice at the top that there is another tab that states “Ver Documentos”.  When you click on that tab, it will immediately display the document available for viewing.  That is pretty much all there is to this website. So play with it a little and you may discover information you were not aware of that may have impacted your ancestors.