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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 Akin (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 Akin. 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 southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Akin is located in Mesa County.

To see how the shape of Colorado's counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Mesa County: Delta, Garfield, Gunnison, Montrose, Pitkin & Grand (UT).

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

  • Mesa County     (The home county of Akin)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Akin, with the one closest to Akin listed first.
    • De Beque
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Cameo
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
      • Cameo is located in Mesa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cameo
    • Mesa
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Molina
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
    • Palisade
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Plateau City
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
      • Plateau City is located in Mesa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Plateau City
    • Clifton
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Collbran
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
    • Fruitvale
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Grand Junction
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southwest)
    • Whitewater
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southwest)
    • Orchard Mesa
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Orchard Mesa is located in Mesa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Orchard Mesa
    • Redlands
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
      • Redlands is located in Mesa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Redlands
  • Delta County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Akin, with the one closest to Akin listed first.
    • Grand Mesa
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Grand Mesa is located in Delta County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grand Mesa
    • Cedaredge
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Garfield County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Akin, with the one closest to Akin listed first.
    • Una
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
      • Una is located in Garfield County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Una
    • Parachute
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Parachute is located in Garfield County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Parachute
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,114 people
      • Former name for Parachute:
      • Grand Valley
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Parachute <1>
    • Battlement Mesa
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)

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

Cemeteries Near Akin ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Akin.

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 Akin - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • De Beque Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Mesa Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mesa Cemetery
    • The Mesa Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Fairview Cemetery
    • Mesa - Molina Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #57426 <2>
  • IOOF Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Eagalite Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • Cedar Crest Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
  • Memorial Gardens of the Valley
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Battlement Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Russey - Hurlburt Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Clover Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
  • Crown Point Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southwest)
  • Whitewater Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southwest)
  • Calvary Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
  • Continue List   (5 more) ...
    • IOOF & Masonic Cemetery
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Elmwood Cemetery
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
    • Sacred Heart Cemetery
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)

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

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

  • De Beque
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Cameo
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
    • Cameo is located in Mesa County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cameo
  • Mesa
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Una
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
    • Una is located in Garfield County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Una
  • Clifton
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Parachute
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Parachute is located in Garfield County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Parachute
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,114 people
    • Former name for Parachute:
    • Grand Valley
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Parachute <1>
  • Grand Junction
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southwest)
  • Whitewater
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southwest)
  • Fruita
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)

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

Newspapers Published in Akin ...

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 25 newspapers that have been published in the area around Akin.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Akin, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Akin.

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 helpful 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 Akin:

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 Akin, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or 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- Akin) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.