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 Lay (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 Lay. 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 and 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.

Lay is located in Moffat County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Moffat County: Rio Blanco, Routt, Daggett (UT), Uintah (UT), Carbon (WY) & Sweetwater (WY).

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

• Moffat County     (The home county of Lay)
  • The following are listed by their distance from Lay, with the one closest to Lay listed first.
  • Maybell
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Maybell have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Maybell
    • Maybell is located in Moffat County
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Maybell <2>
  • Craig
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Craig
    • Craig is located in Moffat County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 8,953 people
    • Former names for Craig:
    • Rosedale
    • Yampa
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Craig <2>
  • Hamilton
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Hamilton have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hamilton
    • Hamilton is located in Moffat County
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Hamilton <2>
• Routt County
  • Pagoda
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pagoda
    • Pagoda is located in Routt County

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

Newspapers Published in Lay ...

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 1 newspapers that have been published in the area around Lay.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Lay, there are papers which were published within 10 miles [16.1 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Lay.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we start 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 Lay:

• Websites specific to Colorado
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails
  • Website for the //www.colorado.gov/archives/

• Pages specific to Moffat County
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails

• Genealogy information for nearby counties
  • Routt County
    • Jump to Cyndi's List
    • Jump to Family Search
    • Jump to Genealogy Trails

• Cemetery Information and Directories for Colorado
  • Cemetery Junction: Cemeteries of Colorado
  • Cyndi's List
  • Cemeteries of Colorado
  • Cemeteries of Moffat County
  • FamilySearch.org: Cemeteries of Colorado
  • Find-A-Grave: Home Page
  • Interment.net
  • Cemeteries of Colorado
  • Cemeteries of Moffat County

Cemeteries Near Lay ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Lay.

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

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

• Maybell Cemetery
  (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
  • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for the Maybell Cemetery. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<4>
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Maybell Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2464714 <5>
• Fairview Cemetery
  (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Fairview Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Fairview Cemetery
• Spring Creek Cemetery
  (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Spring Creek Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #57557 <5>
• Iles Grove Burial Site
  (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for the Iles Grove Burial Site. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<4>
  • To give a relative sense of its location, the Iles Grove Burial Site is located 14 miles [22.5 km]<3> to the northeast of Craig.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Iles Grove Burial Site
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2484909 <5>
• Craig Cemetery
  (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
  • To give a relative sense of its location, the Craig Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the east of Craig.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Craig Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #1094806 <5>
• Pagoda Cemetery
  (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Pagoda Cemetery
• Buckner - Hart Cemetery
  (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
  • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for the Buckner - Hart Cemetery. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<4>
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Buckner - Hart Cemetery
• Strawberry Cemetery
  (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Strawberry Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #57565 <5>

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.<6>

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

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

• Craig
  (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Craig
  • Craig is located in Moffat County
  • Population from the 2020 Census: 8,953 people
  • Former names for Craig:
  • Rosedale
  • Yampa
  • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Craig <2>
• Pagoda
  (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pagoda
  • Pagoda is located in Routt County

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

Off-the-Road Links ...

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

The official website for Moffat County: www.co.moffat.co.us/

The official website for State of Colorado: https://www.colorado.gov/