Fernando Jurado Noboa (born 12 October 1949, Quito) is an Ecuadorian psychiatrist, historian and genealogist.
His parents were Ernesto Jurado Martínez and Inés Noboa Castillo, both from Quito, and he was baptized in the El Belén church on 21 January 1950 with the names Pablo Fernando Rodrigo.
In 1959, at a little over 9 years old, he won his first competition for historical writing and published his first article "The imprisonment and death of Eugenio Espejo".
He was passionate about biographies and some years later in 1964 he became interested in genealogy as a result of his innate and insatiable curiosity regarding people's fate.
Jurado maintained a debate with the establishment regarding this fact through the television and press which made the authorities look ridiculous and showed that many historians said one thing in public but another in private.
After visiting France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy he travelled to Spain where he carried out research in Madrid and more particularly in Andalucía.
At the end of 1976 he was admitted for a year to the University of Pamplona as a post-graduate in psychiatry, following a recommendation by Father José Reig Satorres.
Jurado redesigned the programme by shortening it and he co-authored a book on his experiences called “Psychiatric Assistance in Navarra”.
Along with the guayaquileño traditionalist Rodolfo Pérez Pimentel Jurado organised the First Ecuadorian Genealogy Conference, which unfortunately was a failure.
Spain offered Jurado a promising future but his Ecuadorian roots meant that he missed his home country.
In the last year of his residency he spent many hours in the public library making a thorough examination of the 88 volumes of the genealogy encyclopedia produced by Arturo García Carrafa.
His training is the social sciences had given him a new way of seeing things and he started to slowly develop a more mestizo conception of culture in South America.
He arrived back in Ecuador in September 1979 with the intention of revolutionizing psychiatry, which he considered to be the most backward of the specialist medical disciplines in his country.
In addition he wrote a column on mental health for newspapers in Ambato and for the magazine Desde el Surco.
In the latter part of 1980 he reorganized and updated diagnostic procedures and methods of treatment at the Hospital Julio Endara to improve their scientific quality and efficacy.
In 1981 Jurado, with the help of some of his students, carried out the first investigations into the consumption of marihuana in Quito and weekend binge drinking.
Therefore, in January 1983 he resigned from CENIGA to found the Friends of Genealogy Society with Costales and Enrique Muñoz Larrea.
Oswaldo Viteri helped with the artistic and philosophical conception of racial mixing and Xerox of Ecuador published a number of editions.
This collaboration gave rise to the formation of CEGAS in San Juan de Pasto in 1985 and to the First International Genealogy Congress at the end of that year.
Many Ecuadorian genealogists, and those from abroad as well, started to value data found in Census, Church records (capellanías and dispensas), anecdotes and family traditions which are all elements that Jurado has promoted through he work and throughout his many years of experience.
The contributions of Indians, Africans, Arabs and Jews in Europe and Spain are a common factor in his books, articles and lectures.
Fernando Jurado Noboa has been one of the most prolific historic researchers in Ecuador and he has published a large number of works.