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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 Desert Heights (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 Desert Heights. 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 Desert Heights ...

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.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Desert Heights: Desert Hts. (in Canada, 'Hgts.' is the more common abbreviation.)

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 northeast 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 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 east 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.

Desert Heights is located in San Bernardino 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 San Bernardino County: La Paz (AZ), Mohave (AZ), Inyo, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside & Clark (NV).

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

  • San Bernardino County     (The home county of Desert Heights)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Desert Heights, with the one closest to Desert Heights listed first.
    • The Plaza
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for The Plaza
      • The Plaza is located in San Bernardino County
    • Twentynine Palms
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Panorama Heights
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Panorama Heights
      • Panorama Heights is located in San Bernardino County
    • Joshua Tree
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Landers
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
    • Yucca Valley
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
    • Pioneertown
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
    • Morongo Valley
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Siberia ‑ Historic
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Siberia
      • Siberia is located in San Bernardino County
    • Bagdad ‑ Historic
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bagdad
      • Bagdad is located in San Bernardino County
  • Riverside County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Desert Heights, with the one closest to Desert Heights listed first.
    • Lost Horse Mine ‑ Historic
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Lost Horse Mine. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lost Horse Mine
      • Lost Horse Mine is located in Riverside County
    • Sky Valley
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Desert Hot Springs
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
    • North Palm Springs
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Thousand Palms
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Garnet
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Garnet
      • Garnet is located in Riverside County

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

Newspapers Published in Desert Heights ...

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 Desert Heights.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Desert Heights, there are papers which were published within 26 miles [41.8 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Desert Heights.

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 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 Desert Heights:

Cemeteries Near Desert Heights ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Desert Heights.

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

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

  • Twentynine Palms Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
  • Chemehuevi Indian Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Chemehuevi Indian Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<5> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Chemehuevi Indian Cemetery
  • Mountain Valley Memorial Park
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Mountain Valley Memorial Park have been provided by the GNIS.<5> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Mountain Valley Memorial Park

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

Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for Desert Heights. If you can help, please contact us through our Feedback Page.

The official website for San Bernardino County: www.sbcounty.gov/

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>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.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Desert Heights) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Desert Heights. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 34.2011, Longitude: -116.1417       In this case, the coordinates for Desert Heights have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<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>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.




 

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In closing, please keep in mind that we can not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of the information on this website, so use with care. We encourage you to double-check the information that is critical to you.

If you've found an error or have additional information that you would like to share, please don't hesitate to write: Click here to contact us.

This page was last modified/updated: 07 Apr 2024