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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 Salinas (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 Salinas. 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.

A Few Details for Salinas ...

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

  • Salinas was established in 1840.
  • It was incorporated on March 4, 1874.

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 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.

Salinas is located in Monterey County and is the County Seat.

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 Monterey County: Fresno, Kings, San Benito, San Luis Obispo & Santa Cruz.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Salinas ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Salinas.

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

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

  • Chinese Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
    • 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.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Chinese Cemetery is located in Salinas.
  • Monterey County Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Monterey County Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Monterey County Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • IOOF Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the south)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the IOOF Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the IOOF Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Yamat Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Yamat Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Yamat Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Queen of Heaven Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Queen of Heaven Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Queen of Heaven Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Mission Memorial Park
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Mission Memorial Park
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Mission Memorial Park have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Castroville Public Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Hambey Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Hambey Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Hambey Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • San Juan Bautista Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
  • San Carlos Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the San Carlos Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the San Carlos Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • El Encinal Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the El Encinal Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the El Encinal Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • St. Johns Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the St. Johns Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the St. Johns Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Continue List   (26 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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Salinas had a population of 2,339 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Salinas had a population of 154,868 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Salinas ...

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 53 newspapers that have been published in the area around Salinas.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Salinas. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Salinas and those printed in the larger area surrounding Salinas.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 17 miles [27.4 km]<6> of Salinas.

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 Salinas:

The official website for Salinas: www.ci.salinas.ca.us/

The official website for Monterey County: www.co.monterey.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>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>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 Salinas, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<6>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Salinas) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Salinas. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 36.6869, Longitude: -121.6526    









 

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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.

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This page was last modified/updated: 28 Apr 2025