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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 Evansville (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 Evansville. 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 doctors 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.

Evansville is located in Rio Grande 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 Rio Grande County: Alamosa, Archuleta, Conejos, Mineral & Saguache.

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

  • Rio Grande County     (The home county of Evansville)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Evansville, with the one closest to Evansville listed first.
    • Del Norte
      (Less than 2 miles to the west)
    • Monte Vista
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Center
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Center is located in Rio Grande County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Center
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,385 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Center <1>
    • Homelake
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
    • Agua Ramon
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
      • Agua Ramon is located in Rio Grande County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Agua Ramon
    • Gerrard
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
      • Gerrard is located in Rio Grande County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gerrard
    • South Fork
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
    • Jasper ‑ Historic
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
      • Jasper is located in Rio Grande County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jasper
    • Summitville ‑ Historic
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
      • Summitville is located in Rio Grande County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Summitville
  • Alamosa County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Evansville, with the one closest to Evansville listed first.
    • Parma
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Parma is located in Alamosa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Parma
    • Waverly
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
      • Waverly is located in Alamosa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Waverly
    • Hooper
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
    • Mosca
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
    • Alamosa
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Alamosa East
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Alamosa East is located in Alamosa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alamosa East
    • Henry
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Henry is located in Alamosa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Henry
  • Conejos County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Evansville, with the one closest to Evansville listed first.
    • Platoro
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
      • Platoro is located in Conejos County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Platoro
    • Capulin
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Saguache County
    • Saguache
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)

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

Cemeteries Near Evansville ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Evansville.

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

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

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

  • Del Norte Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southwest)
  • Valdeses Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
  • San Luis Valley Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Lariat Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lariat Cemetery
    • The Lariat Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Workers Union Cemetery
  • Monte Vista Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
  • Rock Creek Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Stanley Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
  • Speiser Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
  • De la Luz Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
  • Continue List   (6 more) ...
    • Alamosa Spanish Cemetery
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Capulin Cemetery
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
    • St. Joseph Cemetery
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Alamosa Municipal Cemetery
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Campo Santo Cemetery
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)

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

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

  • Del Norte
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Monte Vista
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
  • La Garita
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
    • La Garita is located in Saguache County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Garita
  • Parma
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Parma is located in Alamosa County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Parma
  • South Fork
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
  • Jasper ‑ Historic
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Jasper is located in Rio Grande County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jasper
  • Summitville ‑ Historic
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Summitville is located in Rio Grande County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Summitville
  • Platoro
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Platoro is located in Conejos County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Platoro
  • Hooper
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
  • Capulin
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)

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

Newspapers Published in Evansville ...

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 54 newspapers that have been published in the area around Evansville.

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

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first turn to 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 Evansville:

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' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Evansville) 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 Evansville, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.