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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 Mill Valley (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 Mill Valley. 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 Mill Valley ...

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.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Mill Valley: Mill Vly. (or less commonly used: Mill Vally. or Mill Vlly.)

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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Mill Valley is located in Marin 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 Marin County: Contra Costa, San Francisco & Sonoma.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Mill Valley ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Mill Valley.

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 Mill Valley covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

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

  • Fernwood Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Fernwood Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Fernwood Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Mission San Rafael Arcangel Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
  • Mt. Tamalpais Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Mt. Tamalpais Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Mt. Tamalpais Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Mt. Olivet Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
  • San Francisco National Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
  • Yerba Buena Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Yerba Buena Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Yerba Buena Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
  • Rolling Hills Memorial Park
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
  • Taylors Grave Site
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Taylors Grave Site
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Taylors Grave Site have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Sunset View Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Sunset View Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Sunset View Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Valley Memorial Park
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Valley Memorial Park
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Valley Memorial Park have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Olema Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Olema Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Olema Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Continue List   (65 more) ...
    • Chinese Cemetery
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Chinese Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Chinese Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Greenlawn Cemetery
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Greenlawn Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Greenlawn Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Russian Cemetery
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Russian Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Russian Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.

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.<6>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that in 1895, Mill Valley had railroad service and no post office. In 2020, Mill Valley had a population of 14,323 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Mill Valley ...

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 125 newspapers that have been published in the area around Mill Valley.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Mill Valley. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Mill Valley and those printed in the larger area surrounding Mill Valley.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 13 miles [20.9 km]<7> of Mill Valley.

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 Mill Valley:

The official website for Mill Valley: www.cityofmillvalley.org/

The official website for Marin County: www.co.marin.ca.us/

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

Footnotes ...

<1>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.
<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>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<4>If we found a location and have questions about the accuracy of our information, we will simply say that the marker is 'in the vicinity'. We are not confident about the location and the position of our marker is only a rough guide. If we have too many doubts about the location, we will not include it in our database.
<5>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.
<6>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 Mill Valley, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<7>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 drawn from Point A (ie- Mill Valley) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Mill Valley. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 37.9061, Longitude: -122.5454    









 

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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