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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 Crest (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 Crest. 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 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.

Crest is located in San Diego County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of San Diego County: Imperial, Orange & Riverside.

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

  • San Diego County     (The home county of Crest)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Crest, with the one closest to Crest listed first.
    • Harbison Canyon
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
      • Harbison Canyon is located in San Diego County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Harbison Canyon
    • Glenview
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northwest)
      • Glenview is located in San Diego County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Glenview
    • Granite Hills
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the west)
      • Granite Hills is located in San Diego County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Granite Hills
    • Flinn Springs
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
      • Flinn Springs is located in San Diego County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Flinn Springs
    • Bostonia
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
      • Bostonia is located in San Diego County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bostonia
    • Lakeside
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Winter Gardens
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Winter Gardens is located in San Diego County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Winter Gardens
    • North Jamul
      (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
      • North Jamul is located in San Diego County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North Jamul
    • Rancho San Diego
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
      • Rancho San Diego is located in San Diego County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rancho San Diego
    • El Cajon
      (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
    • Alpine
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
    • Eucalyptus Hills
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Eucalyptus Hills is located in San Diego County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Eucalyptus Hills

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

Cemeteries Near Crest ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Crest.

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 Crest - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • El Cajon Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southwest)
  • St. Francis Xavier Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
  • Holy Cross Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Glen Abbey Memorial Park
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Dearborn Memorial Park
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
  • Mt. Hope Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Greenwood Memorial Park
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Greenwood Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
  • La Vista Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Home of Peace Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Memory Gardens Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
  • El Camino Memorial Park
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
  • Continue List   (9 more) ...
    • Miramar National Cemetery
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
    • Mt. Olivet Cemetery
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southwest)
    • Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial
      (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.<3>

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

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

  • Dehesa
    (Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
    • Dehesa is located in San Diego County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dehesa
  • Lakeside
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Riverview
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
    • Riverview is located in San Diego County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Riverview
  • El Cajon
    (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
  • Jamul
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
  • Alpine
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Santee
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
    • Santee is located in San Diego County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Santee
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 57,770 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Santee <1>
  • Spring Valley
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
  • La Mesa
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
  • La Presa
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
    • La Presa is located in San Diego County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Presa
  • El Capitan ‑ Historic
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
    • El Capitan is located in San Diego County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for El Capitan
  • Sunnyside
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Sunnyside is located in San Diego County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sunnyside
  • Continue List   (13 more) ...

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

Newspapers Published in Crest ...

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 307 newspapers that have been published in the area around Crest.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Crest, there are papers which were published within 19 miles [30.6 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Crest.

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 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 Crest:

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>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 Crest, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>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- Crest) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.