The matrimonial investigation records, or diligencias matrimoniales, are part of the McPherson Collection. The McPherson Collection was a gift to Special Collections, Honnold/Mudd Library, of California materials collected by William F. McPherson, an Orange County rancher, scholar and collector; the gift was received in 1964. Predominantly though not exclusively the records of Mission San Gabriel (other California missions are also represented), these investigations of the period 1788-1861 consist of notarized interviews with couples requesting marriage in the Roman Catholic Church. The purpose of marriage investigations was to prove that the parties were free to marry.

The San Gabriel Mission Matrimonial Investigation Records are significant because they offer a unique insight into the pre-statehood activities of the Mission. Also, they establish many facts concerning the individuals married at the Mission and provide much genealogical detail for descendants. There are 165 investigations in all, with 173 men and 170 women being interviewed.

The Matrimonial Investigation Records are fragile and can no longer be photocopied. Please use this online surrogate for the collection to view its contents and print the documents that interest you. If you still wish to use the collection firsthand at Special Collections, please use this online version to assist you in focusing your search to only those items you really need. In this way we can limit the handling of these delicate historical documents. For further information please call Special Collections at (909) 607-3977.

• To read these documents, first click on the name you wish to research.
• Second, view the thumbnail images to see how many pages your document is.
• Next, click on any thumbnail page to read the document. A new browser window will open; close the window when you are finished reading the document to return to marriage investigation page you just left.
• The images have been sized so that most of the width of each line of text will be visible with a monitor setting of 800 x 600 pixels. A monitor setting of 1024 x 768 or higher should allow each image to be viewed with little or no lateral scrolling.
• To print, select the B/W version provided and use your browser's Print function.