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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 Lake Forest (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 Lake Forest. 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 Lake Forest ...

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.

Lake Forest was originally named El Toro

  • A typical abbreviation for Lake Forest: Lk. Forest

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.

A Few Details for Lake Forest ...

While it's still very early in our research, we found that:

  • It was incorporated on December 20, 1991.

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.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Lake Forest ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Lake Forest.

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 Lake Forest covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

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

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

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

  • Modjeska
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Modjeska. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Modjeska
    • Modjeska is located in Orange County
    • Google driving directions:
    • From your current location to Modjeska
    • From Lake Forest to Modjeska
  • Irvine
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
  • El Modena
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for El Modena have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for El Modena
    • El Modena is located in Orange County
  • McPherson
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for McPherson have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for McPherson
    • McPherson is located in Orange County
  • Santa Ana
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Villa Park
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
  • Wanda ‑ Historic
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Wanda have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wanda
    • Wanda is located in Orange County
  • Orange
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
  • Newport Beach
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
  • Olive
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Olive have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Olive
    • Olive is located in Orange County
  • Marlboro
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Marlboro have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Marlboro
    • Marlboro is located in Orange County
  • Yorba
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Yorba have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Yorba
    • Yorba is located in Orange County
  • Continue List   (15 more) ...
    • Miraflores
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Miraflores have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Miraflores
      • Miraflores is located in Orange County
    • Garden Grove
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Bolsa
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Bolsa have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bolsa
      • Bolsa is located in Orange County

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Lake Forest ...

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 52 newspapers that have been published in the area around Lake Forest.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Lake Forest. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Lake Forest and those printed in the larger area surrounding Lake Forest.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 19 miles [30.6 km]<6> of Lake Forest.

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 helpful 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 Lake Forest:

The official website for Lake Forest: www.ci.lake-forest.ca.us/

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 Lake Forest, 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- Lake Forest) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Lake Forest. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 33.6471, Longitude: -117.6860    









 

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Thank you for visiting our website.

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