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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 Indianola (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 Indianola. 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 southeast 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 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 east 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.

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

  • Humboldt County     (The home county of Indianola)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Indianola, with the one closest to Indianola listed first.
    • Freshwater Corners
      (Less than 2 miles to the south)
      • Freshwater Corners is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Freshwater Corners
    • The Springs
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the east)
      • The Springs is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for The Springs
    • Bayside
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Myrtletown
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southwest)
      • Myrtletown is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Myrtletown
    • Arcata
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
      • 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
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
      • Freshwater is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Freshwater
    • Fickle Hill
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Fickle Hill is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fickle Hill
    • Cutten
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Eureka
      (4 miles [6.4 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>
    • Alliance
      (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
      • Alliance is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alliance
    • Kneeland
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Pine Hill
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
      • Pine Hill is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pine Hill
    • Samoa
      (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
  • Trinity County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Indianola, with the one closest to Indianola listed first.
    • Salyer
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
    • Trinity Village
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
      • Trinity Village is located in Trinity County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Trinity Village

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

Cemeteries Near Indianola ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Indianola.

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

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

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

  • Spear Family Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the south)
  • Myrtle Grove Memorial
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
  • Greenwood Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
  • St. Marys Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
  • Oceanview Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
  • St. Bernard's Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Sunset Memorial Park
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Trinidad Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
  • Masons & IOOF Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
  • Ferndale Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)
  • St. Marys Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)
  • Hydesville Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
  • Continue List   (5 more) ...
    • IOOF Cemetery
      (18 miles [29 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
    • Town Cemetery
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
    • Atwell Family Cemetery
      (23 miles [37 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 Indianola in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Indianola.

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

  • Bayside
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Freshwater
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
    • Freshwater is located in Humboldt County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Freshwater
  • Arcata
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
    • 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>
  • Eureka
    (4 miles [6.4 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>
  • Blue Lake
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Korbel
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Fields Landing
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Beatrice
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Beatrice is located in Humboldt County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Beatrice
  • Maple Creek
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
    • Maple Creek is located in Humboldt County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Maple Creek
  • Table Bluff
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Table Bluff is located in Humboldt County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Table Bluff
  • Fortuna
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
  • Rohnerville
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
    • Rohnerville is located in Humboldt County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rohnerville
  • Continue List   (12 more) ...
    • Trinidad
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
    • Port Kenyon
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)
      • Port Kenyon is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Port Kenyon
    • Ferndale
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)

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

Newspapers Published in Indianola ...

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 93 newspapers that have been published in the area around Indianola.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Indianola, there are papers which were published within 26 miles [41.8 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Indianola.

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 Indianola:

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 things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Indianola) 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 Indianola, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.