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Francisco Ignacio de Yraeta e Ibarra, a Mexico City merchant, was born in 1732 in the province of Guipúzcoa, Spain, and died in Mexico in 1797. He moved to New Spain and later to the Philippines and the port of Acapulco. He met Pedro de Ganuza, a merchant in Mexico City, with whom he conducted his first business dealings in New Spain. Ganuza would later become his father-in-law. On Ganuza's death, Yraeta was left in charge of the business and inherited the commercial relations in Cadiz (on the Iberian Peninsula), Manila, Lima, Guayaquil and Guatemala. Besides being an active trader in New Spain, Yraeta was ‘alcalde ordinario’, ‘alcalde de mesta’, ‘regidor honorario’, consul of the Consulate Court and commissioner of the Royal Company of the Philippines. Francisco de Yraeta, Gabriel de Iturbe and Isidro Antonio Ycaza, the latter two sons-in-law of the former, joined forces and were able to consolidate a large trading company. The company was guaranteed to last for several generations, as the documents in the archive show.

The archive provides information on European, Oriental and American merchandise, which was sold to merchants in the major cities and countless towns of New Spain, as well as other Spanish-American colonies, including Guatemala, Havana, Lima, Guayaquil and Caracas. The documentary fond contains copy books and account books. It comprises of 74 copy books, 65 account books, 12 miscellaneous books and 29 booklets and loose sheets. The largest part of the archive consists of epistolary documents of a commercial and private nature. The letters sent to correspondents in New Spain and other parts of the world regarding commercial operations, transport problems, prices, etc. were reproduced in the copy books or drafts. Yraeta's private correspondence is found in these same copy books. The accounting section is made up of cash ledgers, sales, debtors, logbooks, Chinese goods, invoices and various booklets.

This archive is unique because it is a complete fond of a private nature. It represents another point of view from which to learn about the development of trade in New Spain and transoceanic trade. It is a source for research into the economic, social and political history of the second half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century.