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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 Punkin Center (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 Punkin Center. 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.

Name Variations for Punkin Center ...

When searching records, keep in mind that names and their spelling can change over time. Our sources include documents like maps, railroad schedules, Travel, Express and Shipping Guides. Many of these documents date from the 1800's and it's common to find spelling differences.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Punkin Center: Punkin Ctr. (or less commonly used: Punkin Cen., Punkin Cent. or Punkin Cntr.)

You might be interested in other communities that are also named Punkin Center. More information can be found on our Tidbits & Trivia Page for Punkin Center.

If you have information about these names (such as the reason for the change, date of change, the origin of the name), please Contact Us.

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 doctors 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.

Punkin Center is located in Gila 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 Gila County: Coconino, Graham, Maricopa, Navajo, Pinal & Yavapai.

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

  • Gila County     (The home county of Punkin Center)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Punkin Center, with the one closest to Punkin Center listed first.
    • Tonto Basin
      (Less than 2 miles to the south)
    • Jakes Corner
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
      • Jakes Corner is located in Gila County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jakes Corner
    • Deer Creek
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
      • Deer Creek is located in Gila County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Deer Creek
    • Gisela
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
      • Gisela is located in Gila County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gisela
    • Rye
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
    • Roosevelt
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Oxbow Estates
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
      • Oxbow Estates is located in Gila County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oxbow Estates
    • Payson
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • Young
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Star Valley
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
      • Star Valley is located in Gila County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Star Valley
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,327 people
      • Star Valley has also been known as:
      • Diamond Star
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Star Valley <1>
    • Sun Valley
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
      • Sun Valley is located in Gila County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sun Valley
    • Mesa Del Caballo
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
      • Mesa Del Caballo is located in Gila County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mesa Del Caballo
    • Flowing Springs
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
      • Flowing Springs is located in Gila County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Flowing Springs
  • Maricopa County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Punkin Center, with the one closest to Punkin Center listed first.
    • Rio Verde
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
    • Tortilla Flat
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
    • Fort McDowell
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Fort McDowell is located in Maricopa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fort McDowell
    • Fountain Hills
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Pinal County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Punkin Center, with the one closest to Punkin Center listed first.
    • Goldfield ‑ Historic
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
      • Goldfield is located in Pinal County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Goldfield
    • Youngberg
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
      • Youngberg is located in Pinal County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Youngberg

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

Cemeteries Near Punkin Center ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Punkin Center.

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 Punkin Center - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Packard Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
  • Tonto Basin Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
  • Brown Family Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
  • Bacon Family Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
  • Gisela Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
  • Historic Roosevelt Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Haught Ranch Pioneer Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Haught Ranch Pioneer Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Haught Ranch Pioneer Cemetery is located outside and to the northwest of Rye.
    • The Haught Ranch Pioneer Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Last Roundup Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2253543 <2>
  • Mountain Meadows Memorial Park
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
  • Payson Pioneer Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
  • Young Cemetery
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)

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 Punkin Center in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Punkin Center.

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

  • Rye
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
  • Payson
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
  • Young
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)

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

Newspapers Published in Punkin Center ...

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 35 newspapers that have been published in the area around Punkin Center.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Punkin Center, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Punkin Center.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first turn to 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 Punkin Center:

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