Our Genealogy Helper
Introduction ...
Although we found mention of Billings Bay during our research, we really don't have any information about it.<1> We believe that Billings Bay had a post office at one time. We have done a cursory search and haven't been able to find any evidence that the community still exists..
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 Billings Bay (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 Billings Bay. 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 Billings Bay ...
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 have occurred.
While the name of this community is Billings Bay, be aware that it's the common practice of mapmakers to remove the apostrophe from possessive names<2>. So Billings Bay may originally have been Billing's Bay.
Sometimes the trailing 's' might be dropped altogether, in which case Billings Bay might be written as Billing Bay.
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.
Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...
When we do our genealogical research, we like to start with 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 Billings Bay:
- Websites specific to British Columbia
- Cemetery Information and Directories for British Columbia
Cemeteries Near Billings Bay ...
Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Billings Bay.
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 Billings Bay covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.
The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Billings Bay, with the one closest to Billings Bay listed first.
- Woodland Cemetery
(16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
- Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for the Woodland Cemetery. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Woodland Cemetery
- Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2541606 <4>
- Powell River Cemetery
(19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
- Hornby Island Cemetery
(23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
- St. Anne's Anglican Church Cemetery
(26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
- Knox United Church Cemetery
(26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
- Qualicum Beach Cemetery
(27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
- Denman Island Cemetery
(28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
- Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for the Denman Island Cemetery. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Denman Island Cemetery
- Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2591114 <4>
- Yates Cemetery
(28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Billings Bay. See our List of 1890's Communities around Billings Bay.
Off-the-Road Links ...
The official website for Province of British Columbia: https://www.gov.bc.ca/
Footnotes ...
| <1> | If we encounter the name of what might be a community, our methodology is to add that name to our Gazetteer. For example, we might find a sentence like "He went north past Billings Bay and then turned east". While Billings Bay could be some kind of landmark, we think that it's more likely to be a community. We've added Billings Bay as a placeholder with the hope that we'll be able to add more information in the future.
Just as a reminder: Our definition of a community is rather broad and includes those places (or areas) where several families lived and had a name which identified that place. For example, you might hear somebody say that they are going over to Bird Creek to see Pete ... Bird Creek is just a gas station and a couple of homes at the crossroads. While it might not be on the map, everybody in the area knows it by that name.
Places of interest include buildings at a crossroad, several families clustered in a hollow or maybe the location of a way station. It also includes places like mines, lumber camps, ferry crossings, etc. The community might still exist, is now gone or only existed for just a short period of time.
Also keep in mind that Billings Bay could have been on the original document by mistake, misspelled, the original/alternate name of a community that we've listed elsewhere or was placed in the wrong . Sometimes a post office or train station would have a different name than the community where it's located, so two names might be referring to the same community - we're working to straighten it all out.
Since confusion between is common, we searched and weren't able to find another British Columbia community named Billings Bay. |
| <2> | It's generally believed that possessive apostrophes are removed to prevent confusion on maps where the apostrophe may be confused with a cartographic symbol. While this is generally true, it's not uncommon to find possessive apostrophes in administrative names (such as towns or counties). |
| <3> | An 'estimated' location is one where we have been given GPS coordinates, but are unable to verify the accuracy of those coordinates. That said, we have some confidence that we have placed the marker near the actual location. A typical reason for being unable to verify a location is that it might be on private property or maybe historic and gone without an obvious trace. |
| <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 '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- Billings Bay) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Billings Bay. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 49.7000, Longitude: -124.2000 |