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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 La Palma (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 La Palma. 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 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.

La Palma is located in Orange 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 Orange County: Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino & San Diego.

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

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

Cemeteries Near La Palma ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of La Palma.

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 La Palma covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

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

  • Forest Lawn Memorial Park
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Forest Lawn Memorial Park
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Forest Lawn Memorial Park have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Artesia Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Artesia Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Artesia Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Magnolia Memorial Park
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Magnolia Memorial Park
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Magnolia Memorial Park have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Young Israel Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Young Israel Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Young Israel Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Little Lake Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
  • Paradise Memorial Park
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Paradise Memorial Park
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Paradise Memorial Park have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Holy Cross Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Holy Cross Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Holy Cross Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Olive Grove Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Olive Grove Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Olive Grove Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • All Souls Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the All Souls Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the All Souls Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Westminster Memorial Park
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Old Downey Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Old Downey Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Old Downey Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Forest Lawn Park Cemetery (Long Beach)
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
  • Continue List   (75 more) ...

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

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

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

Newspapers Published in La Palma ...

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 27 newspapers that have been published in the area around La Palma.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of La Palma, there are papers which were published within 11 miles [17.7 km]<6>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for La Palma.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we like to start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These websites 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 La Palma:

The official website for La Palma: www.cityoflapalma.org/

The official website for Orange County: www.oc.ca.gov/

The official website for State of California: https://www.ca.gov/

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 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.
<3>An 'estimated' location is one where we have been given GPS coordinates, but are unable to verify the accuracy of those coordinates. That said, we have some confidence that we have placed the marker near the actual location. A typical reason for being unable to verify a location is that it might be on private property or maybe historic and gone without an obvious trace.
<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 La Palma, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<6>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 drawn from Point A (ie- La Palma) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in La Palma. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 33.8463, Longitude: -118.0460    









 

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In closing, please keep in mind that we can not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of the information on this website, so use with care. We encourage you to double-check the information that is critical to you.

If you've found an error or have additional information that you would like to share, please don't hesitate to write: Click here to contact us.

This page was last modified/updated: 28 Apr 2025