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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 Kecks Corner (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 Kecks Corner. 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 Kecks Corner ...

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.

  • A typical abbreviation for Kecks Corner: Kecks Cor. (or less commonly used: Kecks Crn.)
  • While the name of this community is Kecks Corner, be aware that it's the common practice of mapmakers to remove the apostrophe from possessive names<1>. So Kecks Corner may originally have been Keck's Corner.

    Sometimes the trailing 's' might be dropped altogether, in which case Kecks Corner might be written as Keck Corner.

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.

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 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.

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

  • Kern County     (The home county of Kecks Corner)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Kecks Corner, with the one closest to Kecks Corner listed first.
    • Lost Hills
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
    • Spicer City
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Spicer City have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Spicer City
      • Spicer City is located in Kern County
  • Kings County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Kecks Corner, with the one closest to Kecks Corner listed first.
    • Avenal
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Kettleman City
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
    • Millham City ‑ Historic
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Millham City have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Millham City
      • Millham City is located in Kings County
  • Monterey County
  • San Luis Obispo County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Kecks Corner, with the one closest to Kecks Corner listed first.
    • Cholame
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
    • Shandon
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
    • La Panza ‑ Historic
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for La Panza have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Panza
      • La Panza is located in San Luis Obispo County
    • Simmler
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Simmler have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Simmler
      • Simmler is located in San Luis Obispo County
    • Creston
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Linne
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Linne
      • Linne is located in San Luis Obispo County
    • Estrella
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Estrella
      • Estrella is located in San Luis Obispo County

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

Newspapers Published in Kecks Corner ...

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 5 newspapers that have been published in the area around Kecks Corner.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Kecks Corner, there are papers which were published within 24 miles [38.6 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Kecks Corner.

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 Kecks Corner:

Cemeteries Near Kecks Corner ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Kecks Corner.

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 Kecks Corner covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

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

  • Shandon Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Shandon Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Shandon Cemetery
  • Clark Memorial Park
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Clark Memorial Park have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Clark Memorial Park
  • Parkfield Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Parkfield Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Parkfield Cemetery
  • Imusdale Cemetery
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Imusdale Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Imusdale Cemetery

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

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

  • Annette
    (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Annette have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Annette
    • Annette is located in Kern County
  • Cholame
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
  • Shandon
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
  • La Panza ‑ Historic
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for La Panza have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Panza
    • La Panza is located in San Luis Obispo County
  • Simmler
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Simmler have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Simmler
    • Simmler is located in San Luis Obispo County
  • Parkfield
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
  • Creston
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
  • Linne
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Linne
    • Linne is located in San Luis Obispo County
  • Estrella
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Estrella
    • Estrella is located in San Luis Obispo County

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

Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for Kecks Corner. 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>It's generally believed that possessive apostrophes are removed to prevent confusion on maps where the apostrophe may be confused with a cartographic symbol. While this is generally true, it's not uncommon to find possessive apostrophes in administrative names (such as towns or counties).
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>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.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or 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- Kecks Corner) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Kecks Corner. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 35.6711, Longitude: -120.0821       In this case, the coordinates for Kecks Corner have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<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 Kecks Corner, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 07 Apr 2024