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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

So far, we found very little information about Sinker. The little that we've found leads us believe that the community is historic.<1>

We've added Sinker to our Gazetteer with the hope that we can develop more information. If you can help us with Sinker, please Contact Us.


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 Sinker (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 Sinker. 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 southeast 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 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 east 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.

Although our information shows that the community of Sinker is historic, it would have been located within present day Owyhee County.

To see how the shape of Idaho's counties may 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 Sinker. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Sinker:

  • Owyhee County     (The home county of Sinker)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Sinker, with the one closest to Sinker listed first.
    • Murphy
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
    • Oreana
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
      • Oreana is located in Owyhee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oreana
    • Silver City
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Empire City ‑ Historic
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
      • Empire City is located in Owyhee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Empire City
    • De Lamar ‑ Historic
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
      • De Lamar is located in Owyhee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for De Lamar
    • Grand View
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
    • Rockville
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Rockville is located in Owyhee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rockville
  • Ada County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Sinker, with the one closest to Sinker listed first.
    • Swan Falls
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
      • Swan Falls is located in Ada County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Swan Falls
    • Kuna
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
  • Canyon County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Sinker, with the one closest to Sinker listed first.
    • Walters Ferry
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
      • Walters Ferry is located in Canyon County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Walters Ferry
    • Melba
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
    • Bowmont
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
      • Bowmont is located in Canyon County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bowmont
    • Kings Corner
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
      • Kings Corner is located in Canyon County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kings Corner
    • Riverside
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Riverside is located in Canyon County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Riverside
  • Malheur County (OR)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Sinker, with the one closest to Sinker listed first.
    • Sheaville
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the west)
      • Sheaville is located in Malheur County (OR)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sheaville
    • Jordan Valley
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)

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

Cemeteries Near Sinker ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Sinker.

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

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

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

  • Jacob Reuben Graves
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Fairview Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Pioneer Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Reynolds Creek Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
  • Wilson Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Kuna Pioneer Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
  • Kuna Cemetery
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kuna Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Kuna Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located in Kuna.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #1970611 <3>
  • Camp Lyon Cemetery
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
  • Pleasant Valley Cemetery
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Jordan Valley Cemetery
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
  • Mt. Calvary 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.

Sinker itself is historic and was described in the Rand McNally Atlas as having a post office and no railroad service.

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

  • Oreana
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Oreana is located in Owyhee County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oreana
  • Silver City
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Reynolds
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
    • Reynolds is located in Owyhee County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Reynolds
  • De Lamar ‑ Historic
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
    • De Lamar is located in Owyhee County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for De Lamar
  • Grand View
    (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
  • Mora
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
    • Mora is located in Ada County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mora
  • Owyhee
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Owyhee is located in Ada County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Owyhee
  • Kuna
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
  • Sheaville
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the west)
    • Sheaville is located in Malheur County (OR)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sheaville
  • Jordan Valley
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
  • Rockville
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Rockville is located in Owyhee County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rockville

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

Newspapers Published in Sinker ...

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 9 newspapers that have been published in the area around Sinker.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Sinker, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Sinker.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we like to start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These helpful 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 Sinker:

Footnotes ...

<1>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 Sinker, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<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 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Sinker) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.