This collection comprises hand-written correspondence among members of the Amador, Yorba, López, and Cota families in the region of Orange County, San Diego County, and Baja California from 1853 to 1879. Items include personal letters and business receipts. The collection documents the family matters of several prominent Californio families in the decades following the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) and the admission of California to the Union (1850). The correspondence largely concerns the health of family members, births, deaths, family events, family visits, and business transactions. Several letters also contain references to national boundaries, language problems, military movements, and epidemics. Members of the López family in San Diego are the recipients of more than half of the letters, while members of the Amador family, some of whom were based in San Juan Capistrano, are the largest group of letter writers, accounting for one-quarter of the collection.
