These documents included baptisms, marriages and other vital records detailing the lives of the early Spanish settlers of New Mexico.

Chávez realized the value that these documents had to the descendants of these people and began collecting the information in order to create a genealogy about early Spanish New Mexicans.

Each surname section typically begins with that family's male progenitor and includes information on his wife (or wives), children and grandchildren.

Charts within the book demonstrate specific lineages of Españoles-Mexicanos, French and north-south Spanish, and ordained clerics within the Ortiz family.

In his introduction he acknowledged that this may look presumptive, but that his intention was actually to create a "graphic unifying medium" in order to lend direction to the compilation of loose facts.