Families were large: seven or eight persons, it was estimated around 1706. [Note 14: Ignacio de Leturiondo (copyist’s date 1707). Gillaspie divided a 1689 census by the hearth count and estimated an average of 2.8 persons per family. This is probably too low; in a presidio there were many single men.] The four generations of the Menendez Marquez treasury officials are one example. In the first generation 14 children were recorded in the Parish Register (all but two of them legitimate). In the second generation there were ten, in the third, nine, and the fourth generation numbered six. The number of recognized, baptized children in the direct line of this family averaged nearest to ten. [Note 15: Parish Register Marriage and Baptisms; Francisco Menendez Marquez II will 9/2/1742, included with probate papers 7/3/1743. Charles Arnade provided a transcript of this document.] All of the hidalgo’s progeny, legitimate or illegitimate, had to be provided for. The daughters, called “the adornments of the house,” had to have dowries if they were not to spend their lives as someone’s servants. A common bequest was a sum of money so an impoverished gentlewoman could marry or take the veil. (Bushnell KC)