Denver Public Library, 4th Floor Computer Room,
Research Meeting for May 15, 2010
10:00am-10:50am and 11:00am-11:50am
Presentation on Ancestry.com
By Orlando Mestas
Sponsored by the OLT Hispanic Legacy Research Center
Orlando Mestas is a native Coloradan who was born and raised in Pueblo. He is a retired art teacher,
having taught at Fort Lupton High School in Fort Lupton, Colorado for thirty years. His family origins are
from Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. Orlando’s Mestas and Montoya family roots have
been cited by the Trinidad Historical Society as one of the Century Pioneer Families of Las Animas
County in Colorado. Orlando has been an active self-taught genealogist for the last five years, studying
the backgrounds of his family and his wife’s family. This endeavor has become an everyday passion for
him which has opened doors to new family members and new friends. Often he has also found new
“skeletons in the closet!”
PRESENTATION PURPOSE:
To introduce the beginning genealogist to the use of Ancestry.com online family trees as a tool to
research, organize, display, and share data with family, friends, and other genealogists.
GETTING STARTED WITH ANCESTRY.COM
-Google Ancestry
-Under Ancestry, you have numerous selections from which to choose.
*Search
*Census and Voter Lists
* Birth, Marriage, Death
*Sign Up Now
*Family Trees
*Your Shoe Box
*U.S. Federal Census
*Message Boards
STARTING YOUR TREE: What do you know? You always start with you.
*Search: Search historical records
*Family Tree:
1. Start your tree, organize facts, and find answers.
2. GEDCOM = GEnealogical Data COMmunication
* Methods of formatting your family tree data into a text file which can be easily read and
converted by any genealogy software program – Upload a family tree from a file you have on
your computer. Ex.: Family Tree Maker.
VIEWING YOUR FAMILY TREE: Working your way through the Family Tree functions
*Entering
*Printing
*Editing
*Notes
*Deleting
*Adding Photos, Stories, etc.
*Research
*Facts and Sources
ANCESTRY.COM FAMILY TREE:
The fulfillment of creating your own online personal family tree is the joy of making new discoveries
about your family, embracing technology to make new connections, and being comfortable with
“haphazard button-pushing” learning experiences to document the story of YOU.
If you are interested in attending this “hands-on” class, please email Cindy Gomez at
cindygomez01@msn.com and select one of the class sessions (10:00am-10:50am or 11:00am11:50am), the classroom is limited to 12 individuals per session.