Our Genealogy Helper
Introduction ...
So far, we found very little information about Hilltop. The little that we've found leads us believe that the community is historic.<1>
We've added Hilltop to our Gazetteer with the hope that we can develop more information. If you can help us with Hilltop, please Contact Us.
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 Hilltop (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 Hilltop. 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 southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.
Although our information shows that the community of Hilltop is historic, it would have been located within present day Cochise County.
To see how the shape of Arizona's counties have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.
The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Cochise County: Graham, Greenlee, Pima, Santa Cruz & Hidalgo (NM).
Below are the counties that are near Hilltop. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Hilltop:
- Cochise County (The home county of Hilltop)
- The following are listed by their distance from Hilltop, with the one closest to Hilltop listed first.
- Paradise
(5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
- Portal
(9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
- Camp Bowie ‑ Historic
(13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
- Fort Bowie ‑ Historic
(13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
- San Simon
(19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
- Apache
(22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
- Dos Cabezas
(23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
- Sunizona
(23 miles [37 km] to the west)
- Bowie
(26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
- Hidalgo County (NM)
- The following are listed by their distance from Hilltop, with the one closest to Hilltop listed first.
- Rodeo
(18 miles [29 km] to the southeast)
- Steins ‑ Historic
(23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
- Cotton City
(24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Cotton City have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cotton City
- Cotton City is located in Hidalgo County (NM)
- Animas
(27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Hilltop, see our County-by-County Page for Hilltop.
Cemeteries Near Hilltop ...
Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Hilltop.
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 Hilltop covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.
The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Hilltop, with the one closest to Hilltop listed first.
- Paradise Cemetery
(5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Paradise Cemetery
- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Paradise Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Erickson Cemetery
(6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Erickson Cemetery
- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Erickson Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Neighborhood Cemetery
(7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
- Riggs Cemetery
(11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Riggs Cemetery
- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Riggs Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Ft. Bowie Cemetery
(14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
- Kambitsch Cemetery
(18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Kambitsch Cemetery
- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Kambitsch Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Rodeo Cemetery
(19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
- Light Cemetery
(21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Light Cemetery
- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Light Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Rucker Cemetery
(21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Rucker Cemetery
- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Rucker Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Apache Cemetery
(23 miles [37 km] to the south)
- Steins Cemetery
(23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
- Busy Bee Cemetery
(24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
- Continue List (5 more) ...
- Valley View Community Church Cemetery
(25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
- Bowie Desert Rest Cemetery
(26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
- John James Giddings Gravesite
(27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the John James Giddings Gravesite
- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the John James Giddings Gravesite have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- The John James Giddings Gravesite has also been known as:
- Giddings Grave
- Giddings Gravesite
- Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #57018 <4>
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.
While we didn't find Hilltop in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Hilltop.
These communities are listed based on their distance from Hilltop, with the one closest to Hilltop listed first.
- Fort Bowie ‑ Historic
(13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
- San Simon
(19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
- Olga
(21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
- Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Olga have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Olga
- Olga is located in Cochise County
- Steins ‑ Historic
(23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
- Dos Cabezas
(23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Hilltop. See our List of 1890's Communities around Hilltop.
Newspapers Published in Hilltop ...
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 Hilltop.
Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Hilltop, there are papers which were published within 26 miles [41.8 km]<5>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Hilltop.
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 Hilltop:
- Websites specific to Arizona
- Pages specific to Cochise County
- Genealogy information for nearby counties
- Cemetery Information and Directories for Arizona
Footnotes ...
<1> | 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 Hilltop, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy. |
<2> | While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program. |
<3> | The location has been supplied by the Geographic Names Information System - which is maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). While these values should be definitive, we found that accuracy can vary and you should double-check the location if accuracy is required. |
<4> | 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. |
<5> | Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Hilltop) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Hilltop. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 31.9944, Longitude: -109.2765 In this case, the coordinates for Hilltop have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). |