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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 Taft (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 Taft. 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 and doctors 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.

Taft is located in Kern 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 Kern County: Inyo, Kings, Los Angeles, Monterey, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare & Ventura.

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

  • Kern County     (The home county of Taft)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Taft, with the one closest to Taft listed first.
    • Ford City
      (Less than 2 miles to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Ford City have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ford City
      • Ford City is located in Kern County
    • South Taft
      (Less than 2 miles to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for South Taft
      • South Taft is located in Kern County
    • Taft Heights
      (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Taft Heights
      • Taft Heights is located in Kern County
    • Midoil
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Midoil
      • Midoil is located in Kern County
    • Valley Acres
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Valley Acres
      • Valley Acres is located in Kern County
    • Fellows
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
    • Dustin Acres
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Dustin Acres have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dustin Acres
      • Dustin Acres is located in Kern County
    • Maricopa
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
    • San Emidio ‑ Historic
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for San Emidio have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for San Emidio
      • San Emidio is located in Kern County
    • Derby Acres
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Derby Acres have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Derby Acres
      • Derby Acres is located in Kern County
    • Tupman
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
    • McKittrick
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Buttonwillow
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
  • Santa Barbara County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Taft, with the one closest to Taft listed first.
    • Cuyama
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cuyama
      • Cuyama is located in Santa Barbara County
    • New Cuyama
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)
    • Ventucopa
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ventucopa
      • Ventucopa is located in Santa Barbara County

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Taft ...

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 74 newspapers that have been published in the area around Taft.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Taft. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Taft and those printed in the larger area surrounding Taft.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<3> of Taft.

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 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 Taft:

Cemeteries Near Taft ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Taft.

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

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

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

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

  • Warren ‑ Historic
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Warren have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Warren
    • Warren is located in Kern County
  • Rosedale ‑ Historic
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Rosedale have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rosedale
    • Rosedale is located in Kern County
  • Bakersfield
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
  • Lerdo
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Lerdo have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lerdo
    • Lerdo is located in Kern County

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

The official website for Taft: www.cityoftaft.org/

The official website for Kern County: www.co.kern.ca.us/

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>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 drawn from Point A (ie- Taft) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Taft. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 35.1432, Longitude: -119.4596    
<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 Taft, 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: 07 Apr 2024