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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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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 Joy (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 Joy. 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 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.

Joy is located in Mercer County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Mercer County: Des Moines (IA), Louisa (IA), Henderson, Henry, Knox, Rock Island & Warren.

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

  • Mercer County     (The home county of Joy)
  • Henderson County
  • Henry County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Joy, with the one closest to Joy listed first.
    • Alpha
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
    • Ophiem
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
      • Ophiem is located in Henry County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ophiem
    • Lynn Center
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
    • Woodhull
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
    • Orion
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Knox County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Joy, with the one closest to Joy listed first.
    • Rio
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
    • Henderson Grove
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Henderson Grove is located in Knox County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Henderson Grove
    • Henderson
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Rock Island County
  • Warren County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Joy, with the one closest to Joy listed first.
    • Little York
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Eleanor
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Gerlaw
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Shanghai City
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Shanghai City is located in Warren County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Shanghai City
    • Kirkwood
      (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
    • Monmouth
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
    • Utah
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Smithshire
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
    • Cameron
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Surrey
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Des Moines County (IA)
  • Henry County (IA)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Joy, with the one closest to Joy listed first.
    • Mount Union
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)
      • Mount Union is located in Henry County (IA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mount Union
      • Estimated population in 2017: 107 people
    • Winfield
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
  • Louisa County (IA)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Joy, with the one closest to Joy listed first.
    • Oakville
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Elrick Junction
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Grandview
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
      • Grandview is located in Louisa County (IA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grandview
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 519 people
    • Wapello
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
    • Letts
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Morning Sun
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
    • Fredonia
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
      • Fredonia is located in Louisa County (IA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fredonia
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 220 people
    • Columbus Junction
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
    • Columbus City
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
      • Columbus City is located in Louisa County (IA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Columbus City
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 371 people
  • Muscatine County (IA)
  • Scott County (IA)

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

Cemeteries Near Joy ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Joy.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Joy, with the one closest to Joy 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.<3>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Joy had a population of 80 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Joy had a population of 377 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in Joy ...

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 42 newspapers that have been published in the area around Joy.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Joy, there are papers which were published within 28 miles [45.1 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Joy.

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 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 Joy:

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>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 Joy, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<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- Joy) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.