The idea to help the Hispanic community become more aware of their cultural and ancestral history began in 1998 with the birth of a Hispanic History project to purchase Hispanic history and genealogy books for the Escondido Public Library.  It wasn’t long before we became aware that a colonial archive in Mexico needed help which evolved to the development of our website, panes.info.  

Hispanic colonial documents represent the largest source of history in the western hemisphere.  Their importance cannot be over stated however, the vast majority of those records are not easily accessible.

Panes.info is addressing that problem.  The name is an acronym for “Portal de Archivos de Nueva Espana” meaning “Gateway to the Archives of New Spain”.  It is a website that hosts digitized archival documents which in the future will be searchable.  Without question this project could be considered among some of the most unique and exciting historical projects in the western hemisphere.