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The Commemorative Quarter for California





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 East Bakersfield (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 East Bakersfield. 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 East Bakersfield ...

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.

Over the years, East Bakersfield had several name changes:

  • Prior to its current name of East Bakersfield, it was known as Kern City.
  • Before changing to Kern City, it was named Sumner.
  • East Bakersfield was originally named Sumner

  • A typical abbreviation for East Bakersfield: E. Bakersfield

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.

A Few Details for East Bakersfield ...

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

  • East Bakersfield was founded in 1876.
  • It was incorporated in 1892.

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 and hospitals 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.

East Bakersfield is located in Kern 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 Kern County: Inyo, Kings, Los Angeles, Monterey, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare & Ventura.

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

  • Kern County     (The home county of East Bakersfield)
    • The following are listed by their distance from East Bakersfield, with the one closest to East Bakersfield listed first.
    • Oil City
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Oil City have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oil City
      • Oil City is located in Kern County
    • Kayandee
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kayandee
      • Kayandee is located in Kern County
    • Oildale
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oildale
      • Oildale is located in Kern County
    • Bakersfield
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Oil Junction
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oil Junction
      • Oil Junction is located in Kern County
    • Edison
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Fuller Acres
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fuller Acres
      • Fuller Acres is located in Kern County
    • Venola
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Venola
      • Venola is located in Kern County
    • Greenacres
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
    • Pumpkin Center
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pumpkin Center
      • Pumpkin Center is located in Kern County
    • Gosford
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gosford
      • Gosford is located in Kern County
    • Lamont
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
    • Joyful ‑ Historic
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Joyful. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Joyful
      • Joyful is located in Kern County
      • Joyful has also been known as:
      • Joyfull
  • Tulare County
    • The following are listed by their distance from East Bakersfield, with the one closest to East Bakersfield listed first.
    • Richgrove
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
    • White River ‑ Historic
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for White River
      • White River is located in Tulare County

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of East Bakersfield ...

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 119 newspapers that have been published in the area around East Bakersfield.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of East Bakersfield. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of East Bakersfield and those printed in the larger area surrounding East Bakersfield.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4> of East Bakersfield.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we 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 East Bakersfield:

Cemeteries Near East Bakersfield ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of East Bakersfield.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from East Bakersfield, with the one closest to East Bakersfield 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.<6>

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

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

  • Bakersfield
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Rosedale ‑ Historic
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Rosedale have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rosedale
    • Rosedale is located in Kern County
  • Lerdo
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Lerdo have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lerdo
    • Lerdo is located in Kern County
  • Caliente
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
  • Bealville
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Bealville have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bealville
    • Bealville is located in Kern County
  • Woody
    (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
  • Rowen
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Rowen have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rowen
    • Rowen is located in Kern County
  • Keene
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
  • Havilah
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Havilah
    • Havilah is located in Kern County
  • Girard ‑ Historic
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Girard. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Girard
    • Girard is located in Kern County

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

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

The official website for Kern County: www.co.kern.ca.us/

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

Footnotes ...

<1>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.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<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>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 from Point A (ie- East Bakersfield) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in East Bakersfield. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 35.3869, Longitude: -118.9739    
<5>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.
<6>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 East Bakersfield, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 07 Apr 2024