General Information

The Early California Population Project (ECPP) provides public access to all the information contained in California's historic mission registers, records that are of unique and vital importance to the study of California, the American Southwest, and colonial America.

Within the baptism, marriage, and burial records of each of the California missions sits an extraordinary wealth of unique information on the Indians, soldiers, and settlers of Alta California from 1769 - 1850.

•	Community historians can study in greater detail the individuals and families who settled California’s first presidios and pueblos
•	Anthropologists and ethnohistorians can examine the settlement patterns of Indians in Alta California and their movement to the missions
•	Historical demographers can bring greater detail to their attempts to understand the pace and magnitude of Indian population decline in Alta California
•	Scholars of religion can study the practice and administration of Catholicism in the California missions and the lives of California’s Franciscans
•	Social historians can study the structure and growth of the missions and the secular communities of Spanish and Mexican California
•	Genealogists can more easily trace and identify the people who lived in California from 1769 to 1850
•	Historians of colonial America can more easily incorporate regions and peoples beyond the eastern seaboard into the narrative of our country’s early history, and
•	Scholars can attain an increased awareness of the tremendous diversity that has long characterized the people of the Golden State and the American Southwest