According to family tradition, my gr-gr-gr grandfather Salvador Moraga was married to Christina Aros. Aros has been a very difficult name to trace. It seems to appear in Sonora in the early 1800's and is concentrated around Magdalena and Altar. A web search has not indicated that it is found in Spain, so it may be a shortened form of Arostegui.A soccer player in Argentina was named Aros. Argentina seems to be another place where one finds a lot of derivative basque names.

An Arostegui founded the spanish settlement at Ures in the 1700's, but the name dwindled. Horcasitas had many Lopez de Haro families, sometimes abbreviated to Haro and sometimes spelled Haros. Aros could be a variant of this name.

Are there any Aros descendants out there with an opinion about the origin of their name? I would like to hear from you!

My grandmother was Maria Jesus Aros born Natural in 3 Feb 1869 in Soyopa, Sonora. Married to Jesus Maria Rabago in 15 April 1898 in Soyopa. The grandmother Maria Jesus cam to Arizona around 1922. Her mother was Nicosia Sierra. We know very little of her. She died in Superior Arizona in 15 Oct 1948.
Please tell me more of your Aros line
Maria Jesusita.

My Aros "line" at this time exists of a single name, and that was provided by oral tradition. For that reason, I had not put Aros on my Surname list. If Cristina Aros was indeed the wife of the soldier Salvador Moraga, then she was my gr-gr-gr grandmother and I would like to document her existence and family. Salvador was from Altar. He served as the last Comandante of the San Rafael Company - posted at Tubac after the presidio was moved to Tucson. He was born in 1776.
I am waiting for a film that has some presidial records for the early 1800's. An Aros was listed among the men of one company. In reviewing the names in the IGI, I realize that the name was somewhat earlier in Chihuahua than Sonora, and may have arrived from there. It did exist in Puebla in the 1600's (as early as 1606).
Family tradition is that it was an abbreviation of Arostegui, but I think that is because Arostegui was a founder of the settlement at Ures. From its distribution in New Spain, I doubt that story. There are very few listed in the IGI from Spain. Those that are there were in southern Navarra and there is one very early record (1500's) from Viscaya.

I realize this doesn't do a thing to help you identify the family of your grandmother, but it seems appropriate to post such a summary on this site. In Sonora the name flourished in the Magdalena area. Perhaps your grandmother's family came from there. I have to look up Soyopa. I am not sure exactly where it is.

After finding a few Aros listings for Spain in the IGI, but none for Spain using a general websearch, I decided to look at the telephone white pages for Spain. I find that the name Aros is alive and well there, notably in Galicia where the great majority of listings are found in the town of Pontevedra.

Soyopa, I see, is much to the south in Sonora, along the Rio Yaqui. Next to the Chihuahua border. I read also that where the Yaqui flows into Sonora from Chihuahua it is known as the Rio Aros, although this may be because of a curve in its path rather than because of any person associated with its history.

My maternal grandmother's family were Aros'. Her grandfather's name was Sr. Don Benuto Aros and I was told that he and his family came from Altar. He was born in 1830 in Mexico and died in Phoenix, AZ in Nov. 1918. His wife was Perfecta Bravo Aros, but I know nothing of her. Their children were:

Jose B. Aros

Carmen Aros (my great-grandmother (she was born in Florence, AZ in 1880 and died in Jerome AZ in 1912).

Refugio Bravo Aros de Monte de Oca (married to Remigio Montes de Oca)

Ramon Aros, born in 1858, probably in Mexico and was killed in the mine in Jerome in 1908. I am not sure if he was a son of Benuto's or a brother. He is buried at the gravesite in Jerome, AZ with my great-grandmother Carmen.

My grandmother always told us that her grandfather and uncles lost their mines in Mexico and came to work the mines here in Arizona. They may have come to Tucson first, then moved on to Florence. I know some of them were working the mine in Jerome at the time my great-grandmother died. My grandmother Severina Aros and her younger brother Bernardo were taken in by an aunt and uncle, Maria and Francisco Molina in Jerome. Maria may also have been a daughter of Benuto and Perfecta. My grandmother also had an older brother named Ricardo born in 1899, possibly in Jerome. My grandmother said he was taken to Mexico off and on to live with uncle(s) but returned to Jerome when her mother died. My grandmother said her uncles often traveled back and forth between Mexico and Arizona.

I am just beginning to research this part of my family and look forward to any correspondence concerning the Aros family. Very soon I hope to find my great-grandmother's birth or baptismal information in Florence, possibly I will know for sure if in fact the family did come from Altar.

My gr-gr-gr grandmother was, according to family tradition, Cristina Aros. She was married to Salvador Moraga (b.1776), who joined the presidial company of Altar. He later was assigned to Tubac, and was the last commander of that group. Tubac history is described in a book by Henry Dobyns, and is on the web in its entirety.

I had no luck in finding this Aros family. From the LDS database it appeared that the name is not too old in Sonora. By that, I mean that it appeared in the early 1800's. I finally thought to look up Aros in the book Hispanic Arizona, by James Officer, and that gave me some very valuable information. In a reference note, the author writes about Teodoro Aros, then commander of Fronteras company:
"...Altar was Aros' regular post, but he had also served at Tubac. Descendants of Captain Aros - whose full name was Lopez de Aros - were important ranchers in southern Arizona during the Anglo period. In Spain, the Lopez de Aros (Haro) family was of the highest Basque nobility." There is a bit more, about the Spanish origins.

Since reading this, I have found filiacion records for Teodoro Aros and his brother Vicente from a time when they were at Santa Cruz Presidio. They were originally from Horcasitas. I have gone through the Horcasitas parish records and had noticed an abundance of Lopez entries and some Lopez de Aro, de Aros & de Haro. With the information in the filiaciones, it was possible to recognize the parents of the two soldiers: Antonio Lopez and Ursula Servantes. A few marriage presentation testimonies confirm that their family was indeed Lopez de (H)aro, although their father was called only Lopez in the Horcasitas church records. This explained the late appearance in Sonora. Perhaps, in the military groups, it was decided that they would be called Aros to distinguish them from other Lopez. Recently I found more records of this family, earlier than those in Horcasitas, in the Baviacora parish records (Film series 811, at U of AZ) In three of these, the father was called Antonio Lopes; in the last he was shown as Antonio Lopes de Haro.

The trouble with looking for records dating from the 1830 period in Altar (my bisabuelo, Rafael Suastegui was born there in 1831), is that records were not kept there until about 1850. Apparently the presidial families used Oquitoa for baptisms and marriages. Some of these records are on a film at the Arizona Historical Society, if you have access to their collection.

Since Salvador Moraga and Teodoro Aros were contemporaries, and both soldiers from Altar company, it has seemed likely that Cristina was from that family. I have been told that the Aros ranching family, the descendants of Teodoro, lived for a time in California before returning to AZ.

If it sounds as though your family of Aros connects to any of this, let me know and we can exchange any further information that we come across.

Mary:

Guaymas is on the coast of Sonora, opposite Baja CA. Who were you sending your e-mail address to?

My e-mail is:
mjebner@peak.org

Have you seen this?
http://www.library.arizona.edu/moraga/suastegui.html

Hi. I am going over the threads of Sonora geneology. The message you placed referred to both the name "Aros" and "Moraga". I have a g-grandmother named Juanita Aros Frasquillo, and her grandmother was Christina Castro Moraga, born about 1857 in San Ignacio, Sonora. I would find it hard to believe if we don't have some kind of connection. Can you get back with me? Thanks.