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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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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 Oil City (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 Oil City. 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.

Oil City is located in Kern 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 Kern County: Inyo, Kings, Los Angeles, Monterey, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare & Ventura.

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

  • Kern County     (The home county of Oil City)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Oil City, with the one closest to Oil City listed first.
    • East Bakersfield
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the south)
      • East Bakersfield is located in Kern County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for East Bakersfield
      • Former names for East Bakersfield:
      • Kern City
      • Sumner
    • Oildale
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
      • Oildale is located in Kern County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oildale
    • Kayandee
      (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
      • Kayandee is located in Kern County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kayandee
    • Oil Junction
      (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
      • Oil Junction is located in Kern County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oil Junction
    • Bakersfield
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Edison
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Fuller Acres
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
      • Fuller Acres is located in Kern County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fuller Acres
    • Greenacres
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Venola
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
      • Venola is located in Kern County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Venola
    • Gosford
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Gosford is located in Kern County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gosford
    • Rosedale ‑ Historic
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
      • Rosedale is located in Kern County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rosedale
    • Lamont
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
  • Tulare County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Oil City, with the one closest to Oil City listed first.
    • Richgrove
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
    • White River ‑ Historic
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
      • White River is located in Tulare County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for White River
    • Posey
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)

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

Cemeteries Near Oil City ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Oil City.

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 Oil City - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Greenlawn Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southwest)
  • Home of Peace Jewish Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Union Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Union Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Union Cemetery is a very large cemetery that is located in Bakersfield.
    • The Union Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Bakersfield Memorial Cemetery
    • Historic Union Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #8414 <2>
  • Hillcrest Memorial Park
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Greenlawn Southwest Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Engle Family Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
  • South Kern Cemetery District
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
  • Shafter Memorial Park
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
  • Pomfret Memorial Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
  • Bakersfield National Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
  • Blue Mtn. Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Blue Mtn. Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Blue Mtn. Cemetery is located outside and to the northeast of Woody.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #7859 <2>
  • Weringer Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
  • Continue List   (12 more) ...
    • Rankin Cemetery
      (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
    • Fickert Family Cemetery
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Old Havilah Cemetery
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Old Havilah Cemetery
      • To give a relative sense of its location, the Old Havilah Cemetery is located in the vicinity of Havilah
      • The Old Havilah Cemetery has also been known as:
      • Havilah Cemetery
      • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #1982323 <2>

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.<4>

While we didn't find Oil City in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Oil City.

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

  • Bakersfield
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Rosedale ‑ Historic
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
    • Rosedale is located in Kern County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rosedale
  • Lerdo
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
    • Lerdo is located in Kern County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lerdo
  • Caliente
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
  • Woody
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
  • Bealville
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Bealville is located in Kern County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bealville
  • Rowen
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Rowen is located in Kern County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rowen
  • Havilah
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
    • Havilah is located in Kern County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Havilah
  • Keene
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
  • White River ‑ Historic
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
    • White River is located in Tulare County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for White River
  • Delano
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Girard ‑ Historic
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Girard is located in Kern County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Girard

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

Newspapers Published in Oil City ...

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 120 newspapers that have been published in the area around Oil City.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Oil City, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Oil City.

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 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 Oil City:

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 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.
<3>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- Oil City) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<4>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 Oil City, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.