RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of California >> Santa Barbara County >> Santa Barbara >> Genealogy HelperIndex...










Learn About
The Commemorative
Quarter for
California

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 Santa Barbara (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 Santa Barbara. 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 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.

Santa Barbara is located in Santa Barbara 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 Santa Barbara County: Kern, San Luis Obispo & Ventura.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Santa Barbara ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Santa Barbara.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Santa Barbara, with the one closest to Santa Barbara 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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Santa Barbara had a population of 5,864 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Santa Barbara had a population of 90,254 people.

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

  • Summerland
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
  • Ortega ‑ Historic
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Ortega. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ortega
    • Ortega is located in Santa Barbara County
    • Google driving directions:
    • From your current location to Ortega
    • From Santa Barbara to Ortega
  • Goleta
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
  • Serena
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Serena have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Serena
    • Serena is located in Santa Barbara County
  • La Patera
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for La Patera have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Patera
    • La Patera is located in Santa Barbara County
  • Carpinteria
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
  • Ellwood
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Ellwood have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ellwood
    • Ellwood is located in Santa Barbara County
  • Naples ‑ Historic
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
  • Sea Cliff
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
  • Matilija
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Matilija have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Matilija
    • Matilija is located in Ventura County
  • Santa Ynez
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
  • Ventura
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
  • Continue List   (4 more) ...

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Santa Barbara ...

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 110 newspapers that have been published in the area around Santa Barbara.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Santa Barbara. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Santa Barbara and those printed in the larger area surrounding Santa Barbara.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<6> of Santa Barbara.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we 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 Santa Barbara:

The official website for Santa Barbara: www.ci.santa-barbara.ca.us/

The official website for Santa Barbara County: www.countyofsb.org/

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

Footnotes ...

<1>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.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<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 Santa Barbara, 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 from Point A (ie- Santa Barbara) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Santa Barbara. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 34.4215, Longitude: -119.7020    









 

Copyright 2025
All Rights Reserved

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