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 San Marcos (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 San Marcos. 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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most 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.
San Marcos is located in Santa Barbara 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 Santa Barbara County: Kern, San Luis Obispo & Ventura.
Below are the counties that are near San Marcos. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to San Marcos:
- Santa Barbara County (The home county of San Marcos)
- The following are listed by their distance from San Marcos, with the one closest to San Marcos listed first.
- Cachuma Village
(8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
- Cachuma Village is located in Santa Barbara County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cachuma Village
- Goleta
(10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
- La Patera
(10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
- La Patera is located in Santa Barbara County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Patera
- Hope Ranch
(12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)
- Hope Ranch is located in Santa Barbara County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hope Ranch
- Isla Vista
(12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)
- Mission Canyon
(12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
- Mission Canyon is located in Santa Barbara County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mission Canyon
- Naples ‑ Historic
(12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
- Naples is located in Santa Barbara County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Naples
- Santa Barbara
(14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
- Santa Ynez
(14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
- Montecito
(15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
- Capitan
(15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
- Capitan is located in Santa Barbara County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Capitan
- Ballard
(16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
- Los Olivos
(16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
- Ventura County
- Sea Cliff
(29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
- Sea Cliff is located in Ventura County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sea Cliff
For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to San Marcos, see our County-by-County Page for San Marcos.
Cemeteries Near San Marcos ...
Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of San Marcos.
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 San Marcos - one of the links might be able to help.
If not found below, our Cemetery List for San Marcos covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.
The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from San Marcos, with the one closest to San Marcos listed first.
- La Patera Catholic Cemetery
(11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
- Goleta Cemetery
(11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
- Calvary Cemetery
(11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
- Santa Barbara Cemetery
(15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
- Oak Hill Cemetery
(15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oak Hill Cemetery
- To give a relative sense of its location, the Oak Hill Cemetery is located in Ballard.
- The Oak Hill Cemetery has also been known as:
- Oak Hill Memorial Cemetery
- Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #8210 <2>
- St. Marks in the Valley Episcopal Church Memorial Garden
(16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for St. Marks in the Valley Episcopal Church Memorial Garden
- To give a relative sense of its location, the St. Marks in the Valley Episcopal Church Memorial Garden is located in Los Olivos.
- The St. Marks in the Valley Episcopal Church Memorial Garden has also been known as:
- Episcopal Church Memorial Garden
- St. Marks in the Valley Episcopal Church Cemetery
- Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2336947 <2>
- Solvang Cemetery
(17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
- Carpinteria Cemetery
(21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
- Los Alamos Cemetery
(27 miles [43.5 km] to the west)
- Foxen Canyon Cemetery
(28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
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.<3>
While we didn't find San Marcos in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of San Marcos.
These communities are listed based on their distance from San Marcos, with the one closest to San Marcos listed first.
- La Patera
(10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
- La Patera is located in Santa Barbara County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Patera
- Goleta
(10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
- Ellwood
(11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
- Ellwood is located in Santa Barbara County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ellwood
- Naples ‑ Historic
(12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
- Naples is located in Santa Barbara County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Naples
- Santa Barbara
(14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
- Santa Ynez
(14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
- Los Olivos
(16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
- Ballard
(16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
- Summerland
(18 miles [29 km] to the southeast)
- Ortega ‑ Historic
(18 miles [29 km] to the southeast)
- Ortega is located in Santa Barbara County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ortega
- Nojoqui
(18 miles [29 km] to the west)
- Nojoqui is located in Santa Barbara County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Nojoqui
- Serena
(20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
- Serena is located in Santa Barbara County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Serena
- Continue List (4 more) ...
- Carpinteria
(22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
- Sisquoc
(25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
- Sisquoc is located in Santa Barbara County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sisquoc
- Los Alamos
(27 miles [43.5 km] to the west)
We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around San Marcos. See our List of 1890's Communities around San Marcos.
Newspapers Published in San Marcos ...
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 80 newspapers that have been published in the area around San Marcos.
Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of San Marcos, there are papers which were published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for San Marcos.
Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...
When we do our genealogical research, we begin with 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 San Marcos:
- Websites specific to California
- Pages specific to Santa Barbara County
- Genealogy information for nearby counties
- Cemetery Information and Directories for California
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> | 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 San Marcos, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy. |
| <4> | 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 from Point A (ie- San Marcos) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'. |