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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 Fernwood (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 Fernwood. 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 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.

Fernwood 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 Fernwood. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Fernwood:

  • Humboldt County     (The home county of Fernwood)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Fernwood, with the one closest to Fernwood listed first.
    • Korbel
      (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
    • Maple Creek
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
      • Maple Creek is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Maple Creek
    • Blue Lake
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
    • Janes Place
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
      • Janes Place is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Janes Place
    • Kneeland
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
    • The Springs
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
      • The Springs is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for The Springs
    • Fickle Hill
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
      • Fickle Hill is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fickle Hill
    • Bayside
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
    • Willow Creek
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
    • Alliance
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
      • Alliance is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alliance
    • Arcata
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
      • 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>
    • Freshwater Corners
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
      • Freshwater Corners is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Freshwater Corners
    • Freshwater
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
      • Freshwater is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Freshwater
  • Trinity County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Fernwood, with the one closest to Fernwood listed first.
    • Salyer
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
    • Trinity Village
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
      • Trinity Village is located in Trinity County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Trinity Village
    • Burnt Ranch
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
    • Denny ‑ Historic
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
      • Denny is located in Trinity County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Denny
    • Hyampom
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)

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

Cemeteries Near Fernwood ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Fernwood.

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

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

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

  • Greenwood Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
  • St. Marys Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
  • Spear Family Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Hoopa Tribal Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Myrtle Grove Memorial
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
  • Oceanview Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
  • St. Bernard's Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
  • Sunset Memorial Park
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
  • Trinidad Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
  • Masons & IOOF Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southwest)
  • Hydesville Cemetery
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
  • IOOF Cemetery
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
    • 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
  • Continue List   (6 more) ...
    • Town Cemetery
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Bridgeville Cemetery
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
    • Ferndale Cemetery
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)

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

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

  • Korbel
    (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
  • Maple Creek
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
    • Maple Creek is located in Humboldt County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Maple Creek
  • Blue Lake
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
  • Bayside
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
  • Arcata
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
    • 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>
  • Freshwater
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Freshwater is located in Humboldt County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Freshwater
  • Eureka
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
    • 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>
  • Burnt Ranch
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
  • Trinidad
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
  • Fields Landing
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
  • Beatrice
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Beatrice is located in Humboldt County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Beatrice
  • Weitchpec
    (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Weitchpec is located in Humboldt County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Weitchpec
  • Continue List   (13 more) ...
    • Table Bluff
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
      • Table Bluff is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Table Bluff
    • Fortuna
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Denny ‑ Historic
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
      • Denny is located in Trinity County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Denny

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

Newspapers Published in Fernwood ...

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 76 newspapers that have been published in the area around Fernwood.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Fernwood, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Fernwood.

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 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 Fernwood:

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- Fernwood) 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 Fernwood, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.