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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 Three Rocks (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 Three Rocks. 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.

Three Rocks is located in Fresno 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 Fresno County: Inyo, Kings, Madera, Merced, Mono, San Benito & Tulare.

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

  • Fresno County     (The home county of Three Rocks)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Three Rocks, with the one closest to Three Rocks listed first.
    • Giffen Cantua Ranch
      (Less than 2 miles to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Giffen Cantua Ranch
      • Giffen Cantua Ranch is located in Fresno County
    • Cantua Creek
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
    • Panoche Junction
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Panoche Junction
      • Panoche Junction is located in Fresno County
    • Tranquillity
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
    • Fresno City ‑ Historic
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Fresno City have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fresno City
      • Fresno City is located in Fresno County
    • San Joaquin
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
    • Five Points
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
    • Helm
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
    • Mendota
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
    • Burrel
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
    • Benito
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Benito
      • Benito is located in Fresno County
    • Firebaugh
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
  • Kings County
    • Vanguard
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Vanguard have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Vanguard
      • Vanguard is located in Kings County
  • Madera County
    • La Vina
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Vina
      • La Vina is located in Madera County
  • San Benito County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Three Rocks, with the one closest to Three Rocks listed first.
    • New Idria ‑ Historic
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for New Idria
      • New Idria is located in San Benito County
      • New Idria has also been known as:
      • Idria
    • Panoche
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Panoche
      • Panoche is located in San Benito County

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

Cemeteries Near Three Rocks ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Three Rocks.

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

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

  • Anderson Akers Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southwest)
  • Williams - Duckworth Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southwest)
  • Warthan Canyon Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Warthan Canyon Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Warthan Canyon Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Pleasant Valley Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
  • Clayton Cemetery
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Raisin City Cemetery
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
  • Bethany Cemetery
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Bethany Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Bethany Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Warthan Cemetery
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)

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

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

  • New Idria ‑ Historic
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for New Idria
    • New Idria is located in San Benito County
    • New Idria has also been known as:
    • Idria
  • Firebaugh
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
  • Huron
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
  • Riverdale
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)

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

Newspapers Published in Three Rocks ...

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 32 newspapers that have been published in the area around Three Rocks.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Three Rocks, 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 Three Rocks.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit 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 Three Rocks:

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

The official website for Fresno County: www.co.fresno.ca.us/

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>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.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a '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- Three Rocks) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Three Rocks. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 36.5025, Longitude: -120.3915       In this case, the coordinates for Three Rocks have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<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 Three Rocks, 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