Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

• That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
• We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
• On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Austin (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Austin. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Neighboring Counties ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring counties.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the northwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors and hospitals were in the next county to the west. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the north.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring counties instead of the county in which they lived:  their home county contained property and probate records; the county to the west contained birth and death records; the county to the north contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Austin is located in Lander County.

To see how the shape of Nevada's counties have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Lander County: Churchill, Elko, Eureka, Humboldt, Nye & Pershing.

Below are the counties that are near Austin. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Austin:

• Lander County     (The home county of Austin)
  • The following are listed by their distance from Austin, with the one closest to Austin listed first.
  • Clifton ‑ Historic
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Clifton
    • Clifton is located in Lander County
  • Yankee Blade ‑ Historic
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the north)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Yankee Blade have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Yankee Blade
    • Yankee Blade is located in Lander County
  • Canon City ‑ Historic
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Canon City have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Canon City
    • Canon City is located in Lander County
  • Jacobsville ‑ Historic
    (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jacobsville
    • Jacobsville is located in Lander County
  • Lander City ‑ Historic
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Lander City have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lander City
    • Lander City is located in Lander County
  • Canyon City ‑ Historic
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Canyon City have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Canyon City
    • Canyon City is located in Lander County
  • Kingston
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kingston
    • Kingston is located in Lander County
• Nye County
  • Victorine ‑ Historic
    (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Victorine
    • Victorine is located in Nye County

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Austin, see our County-by-County Page for Austin.

Newspapers Published in Austin ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 7 newspapers that have been published in the area around Austin.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These professional and volunteer websites offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Austin:

• Websites specific to Nevada
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails
  • Website for the Nevada State Library and Archives

• Pages specific to Lander County
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails

• Genealogy information for nearby counties
  • Nye County
    • Jump to Cyndi's List
    • Jump to Family Search
    • Jump to Genealogy Trails

• Cemetery Information and Directories for Nevada
  • Cemetery Junction: Cemeteries of Nevada
  • Cyndi's List
  • Cemeteries of Nevada
  • Cemeteries of Lander County
  • FamilySearch.org: Cemeteries of Nevada
  • Find-A-Grave: Home Page
  • Interment.net
  • Cemeteries of Nevada

Cemeteries Near Austin ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Austin.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

If you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our selection of Genealogy Websites (see below).

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Austin covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Austin, with the one closest to Austin listed first.

• F & AM Masonic Cemetery
  (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • The F & AM Masonic Cemetery has also been known as:
  • Free & Accepted Masons Cemetery
  • Masonic Cemetery
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the F & AM Masonic Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2245675 <2>
• IOOF Cemetery
  (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • The IOOF Cemetery has also been known as:
  • IOOF Cemetery
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the IOOF Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2245644 <2>
• Calvary Cemetery
  (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • The Calvary Cemetery has also been known as:
  • Austin Cemetery
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Calvary Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #1980852 <2>
• Austin Indian Cemetery
  (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • To give a relative sense of its location, the Austin Indian Cemetery is located outside and to the northwest of Austin.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Austin Indian Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2244110 <2>
• Kingston Cemetery
  (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Kingston Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #83943 <2>

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.<3>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Austin had a population of 1,215 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Austin, with the one closest to Austin listed first.

• Curtis ‑ Historic
  (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Curtis have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Curtis
  • Curtis is located in Lander County
• Ravenswood ‑ Historic
  (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Ravenswood have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ravenswood
  • Ravenswood is located in Lander County
• Junction ‑ Historic
  (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Junction have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Junction
  • Junction is located in Nye County

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Austin. See our List of 1890's Communities around Austin.

Off-the-Road Links ...

The official website for Austin: www.austinnevada.com/

The official website for State of Nevada: nv.gov/