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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Arizona >> Mohave County >> Willow Valley >> 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 Willow Valley (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 Willow Valley. 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 Willow Valley ...

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.

Although we can't give a definitive list, hopefully the following will give you a feel for the variations that might occur.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Willow Valley: Willow Vly. (or less commonly used: Willow Vally. or Willow Vlly.)

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

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 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.

Willow Valley is located in Mohave 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 Mohave County: Coconino, La Paz, Yavapai, San Bernardino (CA), Clark (NV), Lincoln (NV), Kane (UT) & Washington (UT).

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

  • Mohave County     (The home county of Willow Valley)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Willow Valley, with the one closest to Willow Valley listed first.
    • Mohave Valley
      (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
    • Mojave Ranch Estates
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the north)
      • Mojave Ranch Estates is located in Mohave County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mojave Ranch Estates
    • Mesquite Creek
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Mesquite Creek is located in Mohave County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mesquite Creek
    • Arizona Village
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
      • Arizona Village is located in Mohave County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arizona Village
    • Fort Mohave
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
    • Hardyville ‑ Historic
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
      • Hardyville is located in Mohave County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hardyville
    • Mojave City
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
      • Mojave City is located in Mohave County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mojave City
    • Fivemile Landing
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Fivemile Landing is located in Mohave County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fivemile Landing
    • Bullhead City
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
    • Oatman
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Oldtrails ‑ Historic
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)
      • Oldtrails is located in Mohave County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oldtrails
    • Topock
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Powell ‑ Historic
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Powell is located in Mohave County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Powell
  • San Bernardino County (CA)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Willow Valley, with the one closest to Willow Valley listed first.
    • Needles
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
      • Needles is located in San Bernardino County (CA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Needles
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 4,942 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Needles <1>
    • Parker Junction
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
      • Parker Junction is located in San Bernardino County (CA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Parker Junction
    • Goffs
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
      • Goffs is located in San Bernardino County (CA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Goffs
  • Clark County (NV)

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

Cemeteries Near Willow Valley ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Willow Valley.

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 Willow Valley - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

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

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

  • Needles
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
    • Needles is located in San Bernardino County (CA)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Needles
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 4,942 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Needles <1>
  • Java
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
    • Java is located in San Bernardino County (CA)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Java
  • Powell ‑ Historic
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Powell is located in Mohave County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Powell
  • Homer
    (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
    • Homer is located in San Bernardino County (CA)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Homer
  • Franconia
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Franconia is located in Mohave County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Franconia
  • Yucca
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
  • Goffs
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
    • Goffs is located in San Bernardino County (CA)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Goffs
  • Drake
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
    • Drake is located in Mohave County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Drake

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

Newspapers Published in Willow Valley ...

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 20 newspapers that have been published in the area around Willow Valley.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Willow Valley, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Willow Valley.

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 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 Willow Valley:

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' (or 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- Willow Valley) 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 Willow Valley, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.