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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 Desert Knolls (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 Knolls. 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 Knolls ...

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 Desert Knolls: Desert Knls.

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 southwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors were in the next county to the west. 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 west 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.

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

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

  • San Bernardino County     (The home county of Desert Knolls)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Desert Knolls, with the one closest to Desert Knolls listed first.
    • Victorville
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the west)
    • Apple Valley
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
    • The Village
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
      • The Village is located in San Bernardino County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for The Village
    • Mountain View Acres
      (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
      • Mountain View Acres is located in San Bernardino County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mountain View Acres
    • Mountain View
      (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
      • Mountain View is located in San Bernardino County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mountain View
    • Oro Grande
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Bell Mountain
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Bell Mountain is located in San Bernardino County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bell Mountain
    • Hesperia
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
      • Hesperia is located in San Bernardino County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hesperia
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 96,911 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Hesperia <1>
    • The Mesa
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
      • The Mesa is located in San Bernardino County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for The Mesa
    • South Adelanto
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
      • South Adelanto is located in San Bernardino County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for South Adelanto
    • Adelanto
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Adelanto is located in San Bernardino County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Adelanto
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 34,537 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Adelanto <1>
    • La Delta
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
      • La Delta is located in San Bernardino County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Delta
    • Oak Hills
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Los Angeles County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Desert Knolls, with the one closest to Desert Knolls listed first.
    • Big Pines
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Big Pines is located in Los Angeles County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Big Pines
    • Mount Baldy
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)

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

Cemeteries Near Desert Knolls ...

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

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 Desert Knolls - one of the links might be able to help.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Desert Knolls, with the one closest to Desert Knolls 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.<3>

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

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

  • Oro Grande
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Hesperia
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
    • Hesperia is located in San Bernardino County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hesperia
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 96,911 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Hesperia <1>
  • Cajon
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Cajon is located in San Bernardino County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cajon
  • Arrowhead Springs
    (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
    • Arrowhead Springs is located in San Bernardino County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arrowhead Springs
  • Grapeland ‑ Historic
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Grapeland is located in San Bernardino County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grapeland
  • San Bernardino
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
  • Barstow
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Barstow is located in San Bernardino County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Barstow
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 23,581 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Barstow <1>
  • Rialto
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
    • Rialto is located in San Bernardino County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rialto
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 104,132 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Rialto <1>

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

Newspapers Published in Desert Knolls ...

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 104 newspapers that have been published in the area around Desert Knolls.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Desert Knolls, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Desert Knolls.

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 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 Desert Knolls:

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 Desert Knolls, 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' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Desert Knolls) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.