The Descendants of
the Nicolas Ortiz Family
of New Mexico

In 1978, Virginia Olmstead self published a book on The Nicolas Ortiz Family of New Mexico (6 generations) . This book was completed before computers, and before the resources available to the genealogist today. Her book concentrated on the family of Nicolas Ortiz and Juana Baca, one of the sons of Nicolas Ortiz and Mariana Barba Coronado.

In my ancestry I have 13 branches of the Ortiz family, so as I completed my genealogy, I obtained a copy of the Olmstead book. In going through the book I found that there were several unintentional errors. Then when John Colligan extracted the New Mexico Prenuptial Investigations books Volumes 1 and 2, the new information shown in these books also corrected some of the information which appeared in the Olmstead book.

This book is not a revision of the Olmstead book on the Ortiz Family self publication of 1987. Rather, it is an expanded study on this family. The book is divided into four chapters and covers three of the children of Nicolas Ortiz down to the 6 th generation

Chapter 1 - Sebastiana Ortiz (Ignacio Baltazar Aragon )

Chapter 2 - Nicolas Ortiz (Juana Baca)

Chapter 3 - Luis Ortiz (Maria Montoya)

Chapter 4 - Unconnected Ortiz

The Ortiz Family tended to intermarry, so many of the descendents were related to each other. In researching this family I found that if an individual has one Ortiz ancestor, they will likely have others.

If you do not have an Ortiz ancestor, this book on first glance may not seem helpful with your genealogy. If, however you have an ancestor from the Ortiz family, this book may help you solve some unanswered questions.

The book is indexed and has 377 pages. It contains translated wills from various members of the family obtained from the Ortiz Family Papers. Land Grant information helped to solve the descendants of Luis Ortiz, unknown before this publication.

About the author:
NMGS member Patricia Sanchez Rau was an important contributor to the Catholic Church Project. Her articles are regularly seen in the Genealogist.

Click here for an order form, or return to NMGS Press for a full list of books by NMGS Press. This is Book E-10.