As with other music copyists of the colonial period, little is known about the life and work of Francisco de Paramo. His activity in Bogota and Lima is documented, but the known data spans only the last ten years of his life (1606-1616). His case, moreover, is enigmatic since some testimonies suggest that he was already a prestigious copyist in 1606 when Archbishop Lobo Guerrero hired him to write plainchant books for the Cathedral of Bogota. However, no data on him is known before that year. Based on unpublished sources from different Latin American archives, this work sheds new light on his activity before 1606, showing that Paramo was not only a significant copyist and illuminator in South America, as previously thought, but virtually in all colonial Spanish America. In doing so, it unveils hitherto ignored links between choir book collections copied in the viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru.