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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 Bijou (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 Bijou. 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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Bijou is located in Elbert 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 Elbert County: Arapahoe, Douglas, El Paso, Lincoln & Washington.

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

  • Elbert County     (The home county of Bijou)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Bijou, with the one closest to Bijou listed first.
    • Agate
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
    • Kiowa
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
    • Fondis
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Fondis is located in Elbert County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fondis
    • Simla
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
    • Matheson
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Elizabeth
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
    • Elbert
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Ponderosa Park
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
      • Ponderosa Park is located in Elbert County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ponderosa Park
  • Adams County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Bijou, with the one closest to Bijou listed first.
    • Cabin Creek
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
      • Cabin Creek is located in Adams County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cabin Creek
    • Strasburg
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Bennett
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Watkins
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Arapahoe County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Bijou, with the one closest to Bijou listed first.
    • Deer Trail
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Byers
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
  • Douglas County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Bijou, with the one closest to Bijou listed first.
    • The Pinery
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)
      • The Pinery is located in Douglas County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for The Pinery
    • Franktown
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
    • Pine Valley
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
      • Pine Valley is located in Douglas County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pine Valley
    • Parker
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
  • El Paso County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Bijou, with the one closest to Bijou listed first.
    • Ramah
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
    • Alta Vista
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
      • Alta Vista is located in El Paso County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alta Vista
    • Calhan
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
  • Lincoln County
    • Limon
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
      • Limon is located in Lincoln County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Limon
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,945 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Limon <1>

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

Cemeteries Near Bijou ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Bijou.

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

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

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

  • Gair Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the south)
  • Wiedemeyer - Brockman Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Norton Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
  • Ebenezer Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
  • Hungate Memorial
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
  • Evergreen Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Sproch Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
  • Roehling Grave
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Sakala Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
  • Kiowa Old Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)
  • Byers Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Byers Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Byers Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located in Byers.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #163031 <2>
  • Simla Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
  • Continue List   (31 more) ...
    • Miller Cemetery
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
    • St. Mary's Cemetery
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
    • St. Michaels Cemetery
      (21 miles [33.8 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.<4>

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

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

  • Agate
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
  • Kiowa
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
  • Deer Trail
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Cedar Point
    (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
    • Cedar Point is located in Elbert County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cedar Point
  • Byers
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
  • Ramah
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
  • Elizabeth
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
  • Elbert
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Hilltop
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
    • Hilltop is located in Douglas County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hilltop
  • Calhan
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
  • Franktown
    (29 miles [46.7 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 Bijou. See our List of 1890's Communities around Bijou.

Newspapers Published in Bijou ...

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 40 newspapers that have been published in the area around Bijou.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Bijou, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Bijou.

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 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 Bijou:

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>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- Bijou) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<4>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 Bijou, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.