One notable aspect of the Cámara family's history is their ability to prove, through probanzas, their connection to medieval nobility which further enhanced their status and lineage:"The Cámara family is a special case, perhaps in all of Latin America: a family that has prevailed from the early moments of the Colonial era to the present day. Don Juan de la Cámara arrived in these lands with Montejo, which is why the Cámara family is the oldest criollo family in Yucatán. They had great relevance during the Colonial times and also had significant influence in the 19th century. Don Juan de la Cámara was able to prove that one of his ancestors, Alfonso Ruiz de la Cámara, had been knighted [...] For many years, the Cámara family owned the Cancún Ranch and its surroundings, which is now home to one of the most important tourist destinations in the Caribbean."Through strategic intermarriages with other descendants of conquistadors and hidalgos, the Cámara family formed a distinct social caste, marrying the descendants of figures such as Francisco de Montejo, Gaspar and Melchor Pacheco, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, and Francisco de Solís, who served a governor of Puerto Rico and Yucatán."A genealogical study of the different landowning families [...] demonstrates to what extent they formed a caste within the Yucatecan society, and to what extent, they had consciousness of belonging to a privileged group [...] throughout the centuries, they were a separate group [...] With the study of the documents referring to concessions of encomiendas, we were able to glimpse from the beginning the existence of a criollo aristocracy. But as we progress in our investigations, we realized that what actually existed was a small and closed oligarchy that, by the practice of endogamy, had managed to keep their distinguished antecedents even enriching them through new connections to the descendants of other conquistadores [...] it is curious and interesting to observe how all families are closely linked to each other, to the point of being all directly or indirectly related. What is significant is that the vast majority of all these families can boast descent from the most prominent conquistadores [...] Apparently, it seems logical that all the criollo inhabitants of Yucatan descended from the first conquistadores. But what is no longer so normal [...] is that of all the men who distinguished themselves in the conquest of Yucatan — Francisco de Montejo, Gaspar and Melchor Pacheco, Juan de Magaña, Juan de la Cámara, [...] etc. — only very few stand out as common ancestors of many of the Yucatecan families [...] The consequence is the same: a closed society that has defended at any cost its conquistador origin by marriage with other families with similar ancestry."An example of these matrimonial alliances is the Cámara family's connection to Carlos de Arellano, a Cavalry Captain and first cousin of Doña Juana de Zúñiga, the wife of Hernán Cortés and niece of the Duke of Béjar. In 1562, Carlos de Arellano had married Francisco Montejo y Castillo, the only daughter of the conquistador Francisco Montejo. Carlos de Arellano was also the grandson of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, the first Duke of Infantado. Their daughter, Catalina Arellano Montejo, married Diego Solís Osorio in 1583. María Solís Casanova, a descendant of this marriage, married Antonio de la Cámara y Osorio in 1688. Through their descent from Carlos Arellano, the de la Cámara family can claim descent from the Houses of Mendoza and Arellano, two of the most aristocratic families in Spain. Among the most noteworthy members of the House of Mendoza, for example, is Cardinal Mendoza, a renowned Spanish statesman whose influence was such that he was called "the Third King" during the reign of Isabel and Fernando, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. This intermingling of conquistador lineage and noble connections further solidified the Cámara family's place among the criollo aristocracy of colonial Mexico.
