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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 French Hill (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 French Hill. 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 northwest 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 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 west 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.

French Hill is located in Del Norte 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 Del Norte County: Humboldt, Siskiyou, Curry (OR) & Josephine (OR).

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

  • Del Norte County     (The home county of French Hill)
    • The following are listed by their distance from French Hill, with the one closest to French Hill listed first.
    • Gasquet
      (Less than 2 miles to the north)
    • Hiouchi
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
    • Fort Dick
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
    • Bertsch - Oceanview
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Bertsch - Oceanview is located in Del Norte County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bertsch - Oceanview
    • Smith River
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Crescent City
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
    • Klamath
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
  • Siskiyou County
  • Curry County (OR)
    • The following are listed by their distance from French Hill, with the one closest to French Hill listed first.
    • Harbor
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Brookings
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Josephine County (OR)
    • The following are listed by their distance from French Hill, with the one closest to French Hill listed first.
    • O'Brien
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Brown City ‑ Historic
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Brown City is located in Josephine County (OR)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Brown City
    • Waldo ‑ Historic
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
      • Waldo is located in Josephine County (OR)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Waldo
    • Cave Junction
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Althouse ‑ Historic
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Althouse is located in Josephine County (OR)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Althouse
    • Kerby
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Kerby is located in Josephine County (OR)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kerby
      • Former names for Kerby:
      • Kerbyville
      • Napoleon
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Kerby <1>

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

Cemeteries Near French Hill ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of French Hill.

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 French Hill - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Indian Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Brother Jonathan Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Indian Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Van Pelt Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
  • Oceanview Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
  • Old Brookings Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
  • William James Ward Memorial Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for William James Ward Memorial Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the William James Ward Memorial Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the north of Brookings (OR).
    • The William James Ward Memorial Cemetery has also been known as:
    • W.J. Ward Memorial Cemetery
    • Ward Memorial Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #39536 <2>
  • Aubrey Family Cemetery
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
  • Laurel Cemetery
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)

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

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

  • Gasquet
    (Less than 2 miles to the north)
  • Smith River
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Crescent City
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
  • Requa
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
    • Requa is located in Del Norte County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Requa
  • Waldo ‑ Historic
    (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
    • Waldo is located in Josephine County (OR)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Waldo
  • Cottage Grove
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Cottage Grove is located in Siskiyou County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cottage Grove
  • Browntown ‑ Historic
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Browntown is located in Josephine County (OR)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Browntown
  • Althouse ‑ Historic
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Althouse is located in Josephine County (OR)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Althouse

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

Newspapers Published in French Hill ...

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 17 newspapers that have been published in the area around French Hill.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of French Hill, 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 French Hill.

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 French Hill:

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 French Hill, 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 things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- French Hill) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.