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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 Tassajara (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 Tassajara. 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 northwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors 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.

Tassajara is located in Contra Costa 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 Contra Costa County: Alameda, Marin, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Joaquin & Solano.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Tassajara ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Tassajara.

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

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

  • Dublin Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Dublin Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Dublin Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Roselawn Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Roselawn Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Roselawn Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Oak Knoll Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Oak Knoll Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Oak Knoll Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Pleasanton Memorial Gardens Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Pleasanton Memorial Gardens Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Pleasanton Memorial Gardens Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • St. Michaels Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the St. Michaels Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the St. Michaels Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Rose Hill Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Rose Hill Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Rose Hill Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Live Oak Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Live Oak Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Live Oak Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Lone Tree Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Byron Brentwood Knightson Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Byron Brentwood Knightson Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Byron Brentwood Knightson Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • All Saints Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the All Saints Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the All Saints Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • New Holy Cross Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the New Holy Cross Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the New Holy Cross Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • St. Stephen Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the St. Stephen Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the St. Stephen Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Continue List   (46 more) ...
    • Lafayette Cemetery
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Lafayette Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Lafayette Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Mt. Calvary Cemetery
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Mt. Calvary Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Mt. Calvary Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Holy Sepulchre Cemetery
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.

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 Tassajara in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Tassajara.

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

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

Newspapers Published in Tassajara ...

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 41 newspapers that have been published in the area around Tassajara.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Tassajara, there are papers which were published within 18 miles [29 km]<6>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Tassajara.

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 professional and volunteer 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 Tassajara:

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

The official website for Contra Costa County: www.co.contra-costa.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>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 Tassajara, 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' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Tassajara) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Tassajara. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 37.7978, Longitude: -121.8609    









 

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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