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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Arizona >> Pima County >> Avra >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

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 Avra (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 Avra. 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 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.

Avra is located in Pima 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 Pima County: Cochise, Graham, Maricopa, Pinal, Santa Cruz & Yuma.

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

  • Pima County     (The home county of Avra)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Avra, with the one closest to Avra listed first.
    • Picture Rocks
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northwest)
      • Picture Rocks is located in Pima County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Picture Rocks
    • Cortaro
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
    • Marana
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
    • Nelson
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
      • Nelson is located in Pima County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Nelson
    • Rillito
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
    • Avra Valley
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Avra Valley is located in Pima County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Avra Valley
    • Tortolita
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Flowing Wells
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
      • Flowing Wells is located in Pima County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Flowing Wells
    • Tucson Estates
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
      • Tucson Estates is located in Pima County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tucson Estates
    • Casas Adobes
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
    • Pascua Yaqui Indian Village
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
    • Oro Valley
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
  • Pinal County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Avra, with the one closest to Avra listed first.
    • Red Rock
      (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
    • Sasco ‑ Historic
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
      • Sasco is located in Pinal County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sasco

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

Cemeteries Near Avra ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Avra.

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 Avra - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Rillito Ranch Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rillito Ranch Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Rillito Ranch Cemetery is located 3 miles [4.8 km]<2> to the southeast of Rillito.
    • The Rillito Ranch Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Cortaro Cemetery
    • Cortaro / Rillito Ranch Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2474377 <3>
  • Evergreen Memorial Park
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • Pima County Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • Tucson Pioneer Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • Holy Hope Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • Monte Calvario Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Armory Park Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Armory Park Cemetery
    • The Armory Park Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Military Plaza Park Cemetery
  • Binghampton Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
  • San Xavier Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
  • South Lawn Memorial Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
  • Sasco Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
  • East Lawn Palms Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for East Lawn Palms Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the East Lawn Palms Cemetery is located in Tucson.
    • The East Lawn Palms Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Grantwood Memorial Park
    • Tucson Memorial Park East Lawn
    • Woodlawn Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #578346 <3>
  • Continue List   (4 more) ...

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.<4>

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

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

  • Rillito
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Jaynes
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
    • Jaynes is located in Pima County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jaynes
  • Red Rock
    (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
  • Tucson
    (18 miles [29 km] to the southeast)
  • Wilmot
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Wilmot is located in Pima County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wilmot

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

Newspapers Published in Avra ...

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 199 newspapers that have been published in the area around Avra.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Avra, there are papers which were published within 18 miles [29 km]<2>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Avra.

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 helpful 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 Avra:

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>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Avra) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<3>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.
<4>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 Avra, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.