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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 Essex (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 Essex. 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 southwest 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 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.

Essex is located in Humboldt 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 Humboldt County: Del Norte, Mendocino, Siskiyou & Trinity.

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

  • Humboldt County     (The home county of Essex)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Essex, with the one closest to Essex listed first.
    • Fickle Hill
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the south)
      • Fickle Hill is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fickle Hill
    • Alliance
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the west)
      • Alliance is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alliance
    • Blue Lake
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Arcata
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Arcata is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arcata
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 18,044 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Arcata <1>
    • McKinleyville
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Bayside
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
    • Korbel
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Tyee City
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
      • Tyee City is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tyee City
    • The Springs
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
      • The Springs is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for The Springs
    • Freshwater Corners
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
      • Freshwater Corners is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Freshwater Corners
    • Kneeland
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
    • Eureka
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
      • Eureka is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Eureka
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 26,652 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Eureka <1>
  • Trinity County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Essex, with the one closest to Essex listed first.
    • Salyer
      (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
    • Trinity Village
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
      • Trinity Village is located in Trinity County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Trinity Village
    • Burnt Ranch
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)

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

Cemeteries Near Essex ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Essex.

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

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

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

  • Greenwood Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
  • St. Marys Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
  • Myrtle Grove Memorial
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Spear Family Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
  • Oceanview Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
  • St. Bernard's Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Sunset Memorial Park
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Trinidad Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Hoopa Tribal Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Masons & IOOF Cemetery
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
  • Ferndale Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southwest)
  • St. Marys Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southwest)
  • Continue List   (5 more) ...
    • IOOF Cemetery
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for IOOF Cemetery
      • To give a relative sense of its location, the IOOF Cemetery is located outside and to the southwest of Hydesville.
      • The IOOF Cemetery has also been known as:
      • Hydesville IOOF Cemetery
    • Hydesville Cemetery
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
    • Town Cemetery
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)

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 Essex in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Essex.

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

  • Arcata
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Arcata is located in Humboldt County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arcata
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 18,044 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Arcata <1>
  • Blue Lake
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
  • Bayside
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
  • Korbel
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Eureka
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Eureka is located in Humboldt County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Eureka
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 26,652 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Eureka <1>
  • Freshwater
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
    • Freshwater is located in Humboldt County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Freshwater
  • Trinidad
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Maple Creek
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
    • Maple Creek is located in Humboldt County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Maple Creek
  • Fields Landing
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Beatrice
    (18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)
    • Beatrice is located in Humboldt County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Beatrice
  • Table Bluff
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Table Bluff is located in Humboldt County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Table Bluff
  • Fortuna
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
  • Continue List   (11 more) ...
    • Rohnerville
      (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
      • Rohnerville is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rohnerville
    • Port Kenyon
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
      • Port Kenyon is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Port Kenyon
    • Waddington
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
      • Waddington is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Waddington

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

Newspapers Published in Essex ...

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 82 newspapers that have been published in the area around Essex.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Essex, there are papers which were published within 28 miles [45.1 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Essex.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit 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 Essex:

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>To help visualize the location of the cemetery, we've drawn a straight line between the communities of Freshwater Corners and Freshwater. The cemetery can be found near that line and roughly halfway between the two communities. Remember that this is just an approximate location.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a '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- Essex) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<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 Essex, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.