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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 Coalinga (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 Coalinga. 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.

A Few Details for Coalinga ...

While it's still very early in our research, we found that:

  • Coalinga was established in 1888.
  • It was incorporated on April 3, 1906.

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 hospitals and 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.

Coalinga is located in Fresno County.

To see how the shape of California's counties have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Fresno County: Inyo, Kings, Madera, Merced, Mono, San Benito & Tulare.

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

  • Fresno County     (The home county of Coalinga)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Coalinga, with the one closest to Coalinga listed first.
    • Parkfield Junction
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Parkfield Junction
      • Parkfield Junction is located in Fresno County
    • Huron
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
    • Giffen Cantua Ranch
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Giffen Cantua Ranch
      • Giffen Cantua Ranch is located in Fresno County
    • Five Points
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Cantua Creek
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • Panoche Junction
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Panoche Junction
      • Panoche Junction is located in Fresno County
    • Helm
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Kings County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Coalinga, with the one closest to Coalinga listed first.
    • Avenal
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Millham City ‑ Historic
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Millham City have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Millham City
      • Millham City is located in Kings County
    • Kettleman City
      (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
    • Vanguard
      (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Vanguard have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Vanguard
      • Vanguard is located in Kings County
    • Stratford
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
  • Monterey County
  • San Benito County
    • New Idria ‑ Historic
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for New Idria
      • New Idria is located in San Benito County
      • New Idria has also been known as:
      • Idria
  • San Luis Obispo County
    • Cholame
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Coalinga ...

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 Coalinga.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Coalinga. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Coalinga and those printed in the larger area surrounding Coalinga.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 23 miles [37 km]<3> of Coalinga.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we begin 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 Coalinga:

Cemeteries Near Coalinga ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Coalinga.

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 Coalinga covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

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

  • Warthan Canyon Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Warthan Canyon Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Warthan Canyon Cemetery
  • Pleasant Valley Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
  • Warthan Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Imusdale Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Imusdale Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Imusdale Cemetery
  • Anderson Akers Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Parkfield Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Parkfield Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Parkfield Cemetery
  • Williams - Duckworth Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
  • Clayton Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)

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.<5>

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

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

  • Huron
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
  • Parkfield
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
  • Valleton
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Valleton have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Valleton
    • Valleton is located in Monterey County
  • New Idria ‑ Historic
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for New Idria
    • New Idria is located in San Benito County
    • New Idria has also been known as:
    • Idria
  • Cholame
    (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 Coalinga. See our List of 1890's Communities around Coalinga.

The official website for Coalinga: www.coalinga.com/

The official website for Fresno County: www.co.fresno.ca.us/

The official website for State of California: https://www.ca.gov/

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 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.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Coalinga) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Coalinga. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 36.1397, Longitude: -120.3603    
<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>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 Coalinga, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 07 Apr 2024