Mission 2000 is a database of Spanish mission records of southern Arizona and northern Sonora, Mexico containing baptisms, marriages, and burials from the late 17th to the mid-19th centuries. It now (September 2002) contains nearly 6000 events, over 13,000 people and their known personal information. It is an on-going project taken from the original mission records and updated weekly on the Internet. Personal information about the people associated with each event (i.e., priest, baptized, parents, godparents, husband, wife, etc.) is included. The ethnicity of names include O'odham, Yaqui, Apache, Seri, Opata, Yuma, Mexican, Spanish, and various other European groups. A majority of the present information comes from the Guevavi, Tumacácori, and Suamca Mission registers (1732-1828), but information will be included in the future from the

mission registers of Arizpe, Caborca, Cucurpe, Coc6spera, Horcasitas, Magdalena, and San Ignacio. The Internet search is based on names in the database. If you do not find what you are interested in, try a different spelling, or type only the first few letters of the name. Since ancient spellings varied greatly, a partial spelling will list all entries with those particular letters. For example, the letters "mea" (with reference to a "warrior" in the Yaqui language) will produce over forty Yaqui surnames. Each person listed will have a Personal ill Number shown in blue. Click on the number you are interested in to see his or her specific information. Included with the personal information will be a listing of all Event ill Numbers, also shown in blue, with which that person is associated. Click on any of those numbers to see a list of people associated with that particular event.

From the earliest days of the missions in the Pimeria Alta, there was always a prevalent Yaqui presence. Although their homeland was further south on the Yaqui River in what is today southern Sonora, they were always well traveled and famous for their talents and abilities at working with horses, cattle, and other livestock. They were also well known throughout northern Mexico as capable prospectors. In September of 1736, Antonio Siraumea, a Yaqui prospector living at the Spanish mining settlement of Agua Caliente (about thirty air miles southwest of present-day Nogales, Arizona), discovered some extremely large pieces of nearly pure silver in the mountains about half way between the two places. Although his silver discovery became associated with the nearby ranch called "Arizona," and its fame lives on in the name of the present-day state of Arizona, the site where Antonio discovered the silver became known as the "Planchas de Plata" Canyon. A frantic silver rush

occurred and soon there were several hundred people on the site. Antonio filed a lawsuit to force the claim jumpers to pay him a percentage of their intake. The cavalry eventually intervened and forced everyone off the site until his court case, and other suits that soon followed, could be settled. Finally, in the fall of 1737, Antonio Siraumea was awarded the first legal claim to the site. At that time, he and his family began mining at the claim, providing an example of how original Yaqui surnames evolved into Spanish names in time. María Plancha Platas, who lived at Tumacácori in the latter part of the 1700's, and is included in the Mission 2000 database, was either a daughter or grand daughter of Antonio Siraumea.