Jose Ygnacio Franco Coronel was born in Mexico City, during the colonial New Spain period. He joined the Spanish army and by 1814 rose to the rank of corporal of the cavalry. He married Maria Josefa Francisca Romero (1802 –1871), a native of Toluca.[1]
In 1836, Coronel was appointed commissioner of the secularized Mission San Miguel Arcángel. In 1837 he taught in the Pueblo de Los Angeles, and afterwards he was secretary of the Ayuntamiento (Los Angeles City Council). In 1843 he was granted Rancho La Cañada.
^C. Alan Hutchinson, An Official List of the Members of the Hijar-Padres Colony for Mexican California, 1834, The Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Aug., 1973), pp. 407-418, University of California Press.