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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 Bonners Ferry (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 Bonners Ferry. 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.

Name Variations for Bonners Ferry ...

When searching records, keep in mind that names and their spelling can change over time. Our sources include documents like maps, railroad schedules, Travel, Express and Shipping Guides. Many of these documents date from the 1800's and it's common to find spelling differences.

Although we can't give a definitive list, hopefully the following will give you a feel for the variations that might have occurred.

  • A typical abbreviation for Bonners Ferry: Bonners Fry. (or less commonly used: Bonners Frry.)
  • While the name of this city is Bonners Ferry, be aware that it's the common practice of mapmakers to remove the apostrophe from possessive names<1>. So Bonners Ferry may originally have been Bonner's Ferry.

    Sometimes the trailing 's' might be dropped altogether, in which case Bonners Ferry might be written as Bonner Ferry.

If you have information about these names (such as the reason for the change, date of change, the origin of the name), please Contact Us.

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.

Bonners Ferry is located in Boundary County and is the County Seat.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Boundary County: Bonner, Lincoln (MT), Sanders (MT) & Pend Oreille (WA).

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

  • Boundary County     (The home county of Bonners Ferry)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Bonners Ferry, with the one closest to Bonners Ferry listed first.
    • Moyie Springs
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Moyie Springs have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Moyie Springs
      • Moyie Springs is located in Boundary County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 795 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Moyie Springs <3>
    • Naples
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Boulder City ‑ Historic
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Boulder City have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Boulder City
      • Boulder City is located in Boundary County
    • Eastport
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
    • Porthill
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Porthill have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Porthill
      • Porthill is located in Boundary County
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Porthill <3>
  • Bonner County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Bonners Ferry, with the one closest to Bonners Ferry listed first.
    • Samuels
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Samuels have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Samuels
      • Samuels is located in Bonner County
    • Colburn
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Boyer
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Boyer
      • Boyer is located in Bonner County
    • Kootenai
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
    • Ponderay
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
    • Coolin
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Coolin have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Coolin
      • Coolin is located in Bonner County
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Coolin <3>
    • Nordman
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Nordman have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Nordman
      • Nordman is located in Bonner County
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Nordman <3>
    • East Hope
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for East Hope have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for East Hope
      • East Hope is located in Bonner County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 231 people
    • Hope
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Hope have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hope
      • Hope is located in Bonner County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 102 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Hope <3>
    • Sandpoint
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
  • Lincoln County (MT)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Bonners Ferry, with the one closest to Bonners Ferry listed first.
    • Sylvanite
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sylvanite
      • Sylvanite is located in Lincoln County (MT)
    • Troy
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Troy
      • Troy is located in Lincoln County (MT)
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 982 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Troy <3>
    • Yaak
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Yaak
      • Yaak is located in Lincoln County (MT)

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Bonners Ferry ...

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 Bonners Ferry.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Bonners Ferry. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Bonners Ferry and those printed in the larger area surrounding Bonners Ferry.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4> of Bonners Ferry.

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 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 Bonners Ferry:

Cemeteries Near Bonners Ferry ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Bonners Ferry.

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

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

  • Grandview Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
  • Paradise Valley Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Paradise Valley Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Paradise Valley Cemetery
  • Moravia Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Moravia Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Moravia Cemetery
  • Boulder Creek Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Boulder Creek Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Boulder Creek Cemetery
  • Copeland Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
  • Gold Creek Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Gold Creek Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Gold Creek Cemetery
  • Pack River Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Pack River Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Pack River Cemetery
  • IOOF Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
  • Troy Cemetery
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Troy Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Troy Cemetery
  • Forest Lawn Cemetery
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Forest Lawn Cemetery is located outside and to the north of Erickson (BC).
    • The Forest Lawn Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Forest Lawn Municipal Cemetery
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Forest Lawn Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2180752 <5>
  • Pioneer Cemetery
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
  • Old Hope Cemetery
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for the Old Hope Cemetery. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<6>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Old Hope Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2282122 <5>
  • Continue List   (4 more) ...
    • Larchwood Cemetery
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Larchwood Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Larchwood Cemetery

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.<7>

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

  • Kootenai
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)

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

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

The official website for Boundary County: www.boundary-idaho.com/

The official website for State of Idaho: www.state.id.us/

Footnotes ...

<1>It's generally believed that possessive apostrophes are removed to prevent confusion on maps where the apostrophe may be confused with a cartographic symbol. While this is generally true, it's not uncommon to find possessive apostrophes in administrative names (such as towns or counties).
<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>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a '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- Bonners Ferry) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Bonners Ferry. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 48.6846, Longitude: -116.3203    
<5>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.
<6>An 'estimated' location is one where we have been given GPS coordinates, but are unable to verify the accuracy of those coordinates. That said, we have some confidence that we have placed the marker near the actual location. A typical reason for being unable to verify a location is that it might be on private property or maybe historic and gone without an obvious trace.
<7>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 Bonners Ferry, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 07 Apr 2024