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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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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 Agua Fria (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 Agua Fria. 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 southwest 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 south.

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 south 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.

Agua Fria is located in Maricopa County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Maricopa County: Gila, La Paz, Pima, Pinal, Yavapai & Yuma.

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

  • Maricopa County     (The home county of Agua Fria)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Agua Fria, with the one closest to Agua Fria listed first.
    • El Mirage
      (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
    • Youngtown
      (Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
    • Sun City
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the east)
    • Peoria Polynesian Village
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
    • Sunset Village
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
      • Sunset Village is located in Maricopa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sunset Village
    • Peoria
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
      • Peoria is located in Maricopa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Peoria
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 179,872 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Peoria <1>
    • Sun City West
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
    • Westbrook Village
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Westbrook Village is located in Maricopa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Westbrook Village
    • Surprise
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Peacock Village
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
      • Peacock Village is located in Maricopa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Peacock Village
    • Pioneer Village II
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
      • Pioneer Village II is located in Maricopa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pioneer Village II
    • Liberty Village
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
      • Liberty Village is located in Maricopa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Liberty Village
    • Arrowhead Ranch
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
      • Arrowhead Ranch is located in Maricopa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arrowhead Ranch
  • Pinal County
    • Santa Cruz
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
      • Santa Cruz is located in Pinal County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Santa Cruz
  • Yavapai County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Agua Fria, with the one closest to Agua Fria listed first.
    • Columbia ‑ Historic
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
      • Columbia is located in Yavapai County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Columbia
    • Gillett ‑ Historic
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
      • Gillett is located in Yavapai County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gillett
    • Humbug ‑ Historic
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
      • Humbug is located in Yavapai County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Humbug
    • Tip Top ‑ Historic
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
      • Tip Top is located in Yavapai County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tip Top

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

Cemeteries Near Agua Fria ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Agua Fria.

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.

Although we don't have the information ourselves, if you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our list of websites on our Genealogy Helper Page for Agua Fria - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Sunwest Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • Sunland Memorial Park
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Heath Grave
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
  • Russian Molokan Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
  • West Resthaven Park Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for West Resthaven Park Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the West Resthaven Park Cemetery is a very large cemetery that is located in Glendale.
    • The West Resthaven Park Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Resthaven Cemetery
    • Resthaven Park West Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #57098 <2>
  • White Tanks Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Goodyear Farms Historic Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
  • Glendale Memorial Park
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
  • Holy Cross Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
  • Home Mission Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Home Mission Cemetery
    • The Home Mission Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Sleeping Bride Cemetery
  • Phoenix Memorial Park
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • Beth Israel Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
  • Continue List   (34 more) ...
    • Work Circle Cemetery
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Greenwood Memory Lawn Cemetery
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Greenwood Memory Lawn Cemetery
      • To give a relative sense of its location, the Greenwood Memory Lawn Cemetery is a very large cemetery that is located in Phoenix.
      • The Greenwood Memory Lawn Cemetery has also been known as:
      • Forest Lawn Cemetery
      • Greenwood Memorial Cemetery
      • Memory Lawn Cemetery
      • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #57026 <2>
    • Beth El Cemetery
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)

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>

While we didn't find Agua Fria in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Agua Fria.

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

  • Peoria
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
    • Peoria is located in Maricopa County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Peoria
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 179,872 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Peoria <1>
  • Phoenix
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Phoenix is located in Maricopa County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Phoenix
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,708,127 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Phoenix <1>
  • Buckeye
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Tempe
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Tempe is located in Maricopa County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tempe
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 200,402 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Tempe <1>
  • Cave Creek
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Kyrene
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Kyrene is located in Maricopa County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kyrene

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

Newspapers Published in Agua Fria ...

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 49 newspapers that have been published in the area around Agua Fria.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Agua Fria, there are papers which were published within 14 miles [22.5 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Agua Fria.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These websites either 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 Agua Fria:

Footnotes ...

<1>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<2>The Find-a-Grave website is an excellent research tool with information about a cemetery's location and interments. They also offer a forum for their members which can provide additional help. More information about Find-a-Grave can be found on their website: findagrave.com.
<3>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Agua Fria, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Agua Fria) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.