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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 Sunset Hills (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 Sunset Hills. 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 southwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals were in the next county to the west. 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 west 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.

Sunset Hills is located in San Bernardino 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 San Bernardino County: La Paz (AZ), Mohave (AZ), Inyo, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside & Clark (NV).

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

  • San Bernardino County     (The home county of Sunset Hills)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Sunset Hills, with the one closest to Sunset Hills listed first.
    • Apple Valley
      (Less than 2 miles to the east)
    • Victorville
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Hesperia
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Hesperia is located in San Bernardino County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hesperia
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 96,911 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Hesperia <1>
    • The Village
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
      • The Village is located in San Bernardino County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for The Village
    • The Mesa
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
      • The Mesa is located in San Bernardino County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for The Mesa
    • Mountain View Acres
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
      • Mountain View Acres is located in San Bernardino County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mountain View Acres
    • Mountain View
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
      • Mountain View is located in San Bernardino County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mountain View
    • Bell Mountain
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
      • Bell Mountain is located in San Bernardino County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bell Mountain
    • Oro Grande
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Oak Hills
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
    • South Adelanto
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
      • South Adelanto is located in San Bernardino County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for South Adelanto
    • Adelanto
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
      • Adelanto is located in San Bernardino County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Adelanto
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 34,537 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Adelanto <1>
    • La Delta
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
      • La Delta is located in San Bernardino County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Delta
  • Los Angeles County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Sunset Hills, with the one closest to Sunset Hills listed first.
    • Big Pines
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the west)
      • Big Pines is located in Los Angeles County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Big Pines
    • Mount Baldy
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)

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

Cemeteries Near Sunset Hills ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Sunset Hills.

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 Sunset Hills - one of the links might be able to help.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Sunset Hills, with the one closest to Sunset Hills 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.<3>

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

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

  • Hesperia
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Hesperia is located in San Bernardino County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hesperia
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 96,911 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Hesperia <1>
  • Oro Grande
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
  • Cajon
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Cajon is located in San Bernardino County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cajon
  • Arrowhead Springs
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
    • Arrowhead Springs is located in San Bernardino County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arrowhead Springs
  • Grapeland ‑ Historic
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Grapeland is located in San Bernardino County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grapeland
  • San Bernardino
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
  • Rialto
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
    • Rialto is located in San Bernardino County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rialto
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 104,132 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Rialto <1>
  • Colton
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
    • Colton is located in San Bernardino County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Colton
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 54,661 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Colton <1>
  • Victoria
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
    • Victoria is located in San Bernardino County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Victoria
  • Lugonia ‑ Historic
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
    • Lugonia is located in San Bernardino County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lugonia
  • Mentone
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
  • Barstow
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Barstow is located in San Bernardino County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Barstow
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 23,581 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Barstow <1>

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

Newspapers Published in Sunset Hills ...

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 130 newspapers that have been published in the area around Sunset Hills.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Sunset Hills, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Sunset Hills.

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 Sunset Hills:

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 Sunset Hills, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>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 drawn from Point A (ie- Sunset Hills) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.