RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Idaho >> Caribou County >> Soda Springs >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

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 Soda Springs (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 Soda Springs. 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 Soda Springs ...

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 occur.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Soda Springs: Soda Spgs. (or less commonly used: Soda Spngs. or Soda Sprngs.)

You might be interested in other communities that are also named Soda Springs. More information can be found on our Tidbits & Trivia Page for Soda Springs.

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 northwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next county to the west. 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 west 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.

Soda Springs is located in Caribou County and is the County Seat.

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 Caribou County: Bannock, Bear Lake, Bingham, Bonneville, Franklin & Lincoln (WY).

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

  • Caribou County     (The home county of Soda Springs)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Soda Springs, with the one closest to Soda Springs listed first.
    • Conda
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
      • Conda is located in Caribou County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Conda
    • Grace
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Bench
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Bench is located in Caribou County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bench
    • Bancroft
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
    • Chesterfield ‑ Historic
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
      • Chesterfield is located in Caribou County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Chesterfield
    • Wayan
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
  • Bannock County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Soda Springs, with the one closest to Soda Springs listed first.
    • Lava Hot Springs
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
    • Arimo
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
    • McCammon
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
  • Bear Lake County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Soda Springs, with the one closest to Soda Springs listed first.
    • Novene
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Novene is located in Bear Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Novene
    • Georgetown
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Bennington
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Bennington is located in Bear Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bennington
    • Bern
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
    • Ovid
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
      • Ovid is located in Bear Lake County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ovid
    • Montpelier
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Franklin County
  • Lincoln County (WY)

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

Cemeteries Near Soda Springs ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Soda Springs.

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 Soda Springs - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Grace Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Old Presbyterian Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
  • Skinner Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Old Lund Pioneer Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
  • Lago Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
  • Nounan Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Thatcher Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Chesterfield Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
  • Lava Hot Springs Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lava Hot Springs Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Lava Hot Springs Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located less than 2 miles<3> to the south of Lava Hot Springs.
    • The Lava Hot Springs Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Lava Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #80537 <2>
  • Cleveland Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
  • Liberty Cemetery
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
  • Bennington Cemetery
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
  • Continue List   (13 more) ...

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

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

  • Manson
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Manson is located in Bear Lake County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Manson
  • Novene
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Novene is located in Bear Lake County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Novene
  • Georgetown
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Liberty
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
    • Liberty is located in Bear Lake County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Liberty
  • Ovid
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
    • Ovid is located in Bear Lake County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ovid
  • Montpelier
    (27 miles [43.5 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 Soda Springs. See our List of 1890's Communities around Soda Springs.

Newspapers Published in Soda Springs ...

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 6 newspapers that have been published in the area around Soda Springs.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Soda Springs, there are papers which were published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Soda Springs.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we begin 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 Soda Springs:

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