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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 Oreana (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 Oreana. 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 and 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.

Oreana is located in Owyhee County.

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 Owyhee County: Ada, Canyon, Elmore, Twin Falls, Elko (NV), Humboldt (NV) & Malheur (OR).

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

  • Owyhee County     (The home county of Oreana)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Oreana, with the one closest to Oreana listed first.
    • Murphy
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Murphy have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Murphy
      • Murphy is located in Owyhee County
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Murphy <2>
    • Grand View
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Grand View have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grand View
      • Grand View is located in Owyhee County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 478 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Grand View <2>
    • Empire City ‑ Historic
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Empire City have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Empire City
      • Empire City is located in Owyhee County
    • Silver City
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
    • De Lamar ‑ Historic
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
  • Ada County
  • Canyon County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Oreana, with the one closest to Oreana listed first.
    • Walters Ferry
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Melba
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Melba have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Melba
      • Melba is located in Canyon County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 553 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Melba <2>
    • Bowmont
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)

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

Cemeteries Near Oreana ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Oreana.

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

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

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.<5>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Oreana had a population of 27 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service.

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

  • Sinker ‑ Historic
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Sinker have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sinker
    • Sinker is located in Owyhee County
  • Grand View
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Grand View have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grand View
    • Grand View is located in Owyhee County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 478 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Grand View <2>
  • Silver City
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
  • Reynolds
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Reynolds have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Reynolds
    • Reynolds is located in Owyhee County
  • De Lamar ‑ Historic
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
  • Owyhee
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Owyhee have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Owyhee
    • Owyhee is located in Ada County
  • Mora
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Mora have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mora
    • Mora is located in Ada County

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

Newspapers Published in Oreana ...

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 8 newspapers that have been published in the area around Oreana.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Oreana, there are papers which were published within 17 miles [27.4 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Oreana.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These 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 Oreana:

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

The official website for Owyhee County: www.owyheecounty.net/

The official website for State of Idaho: https://idaho.gov/

Footnotes ...

<1>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.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>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.
<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- Oreana) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Oreana. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 43.0531, Longitude: -116.3948    
<5>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 Oreana, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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In closing, please keep in mind that we can not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of the information on this website, so use with care. We encourage you to double-check the information that is critical to you.

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This page was last modified/updated: 28 Apr 2025