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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 Surprise Station (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 Surprise Station. 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.

Name Variations for Surprise Station ...

When searching records, keep in mind that names and their spelling can change over time. Our sources include documents like maps, railroad schedules, Travel, Express and Shipping Guides. Many of these documents date from the 1800's and it's common to find spelling differences.

Although we can't give a definitive list, hopefully the following will give you a feel for the variations that might have occurred.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Surprise Station: Surprise Sta. (in Canada, 'Stn.' is the more common abbreviation.)

If you have information about these names (such as the reason for the change, date of change, the origin of the name), please Contact Us.

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 northwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors and hospitals were in the next county to the west. 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 west 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.

Surprise Station is located in Modoc County.

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 Modoc County: Lassen, Shasta, Siskiyou, Washoe (NV), Klamath (OR) & Lake (OR).

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

  • Modoc County     (The home county of Surprise Station)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Surprise Station, with the one closest to Surprise Station listed first.
    • Alturas
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alturas
      • Alturas is located in Modoc County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,542 people
      • Former name for Alturas:
      • Dorrisville
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Alturas <1>
    • Davis Creek
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
    • Lake City
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
    • Cedarville
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
    • McArthur
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for McArthur have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for McArthur
      • McArthur is located in Modoc County
    • Cantrall Mill ‑ Historic
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Cantrall Mill. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cantrall Mill
      • Cantrall Mill is located in Modoc County
    • Likely
      (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
    • Fort Bidwell
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Eagleville
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
    • Canby
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
    • Fairport
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fairport
      • Fairport is located in Modoc County
    • New Pine Creek
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for New Pine Creek
      • New Pine Creek is located in Modoc County
  • Lake County (OR)

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

Cemeteries Near Surprise Station ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Surprise Station.

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

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

  • Alturas Indian Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
  • Alturas Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Alturas Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Alturas Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the east of Alturas.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #1975553 <4>
  • Pioneer Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Davis Creek Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
  • Lake City Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Indian Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
  • Cedarville Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • Centerville Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Centerville Cemetery
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for the Centerville Cemetery. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2540241 <4>
  • Eagleville Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
  • Continue List   (6 more) ...
    • Willow Ranch Cemetery
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • ISOT Family Cemetery
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the ISOT Family Cemetery
      • To give a relative sense of its location, the ISOT Family Cemetery is located outside and to the west of Canby.
      • The ISOT Family Cemetery has also been known as:
      • In Search of Truth Cemetery
      • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2550853 <4>
    • Canby Pioneer Cemetery
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Canby Pioneer Cemetery
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for the Canby Pioneer Cemetery. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
      • To give a relative sense of its location, the Canby Pioneer Cemetery is located less than 2 miles<5> to the north of Canby.
      • The Canby Pioneer Cemetery has also been known as:
      • Canby Cemetery
      • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2305845 <4>
    • Likely Cemetery
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Likely Cemetery
      • To give a relative sense of its location, the Likely Cemetery is located outside and to the south of Likely.
      • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #8111 <4>
    • Ft. Bidwell Cemetery
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Ft. Bidwell Cemetery
      • To give a relative sense of its location, the Ft. Bidwell Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the northwest of Fort Bidwell.
      • The Ft. Bidwell Cemetery has also been known as:
      • Surprise Valley Ft. Bidwell Cemetery
      • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #253437 <4>

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.<6>

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

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

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

Newspapers Published in Surprise Station ...

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 21 newspapers that have been published in the area around Surprise Station.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Surprise Station, there are papers which were published within 28 miles [45.1 km]<5>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Surprise Station.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we like to start with 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 Surprise Station:

Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for Surprise Station. If you can help, please contact us through our Feedback Page.

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

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 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.
<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>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- Surprise Station) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Surprise Station. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 41.5738, Longitude: -120.4363       In this case, the coordinates for Surprise Station have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<6>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 Surprise Station, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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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.

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