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The Commemorative Quarter for Kansas





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 Charleston (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 Charleston. 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 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.

Charleston is located in Gray County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Gray County: Finney, Ford, Haskell, Hodgeman & Meade.

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

  • Gray County     (The home county of Charleston)
  • Finney County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Charleston, with the one closest to Charleston listed first.
    • Pierceville
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Pierceville have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pierceville
      • Pierceville is located in Finney County
    • Garden City
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Kalvesta
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Kalvesta. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<1>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kalvesta
      • Kalvesta is located in Finney County
      • Google driving directions:
      • From your current location to Kalvesta
      • From Charleston to Kalvesta
    • Ravanna ‑ Historic
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Rodkey ‑ Historic
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Rodkey. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<1>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rodkey
      • Rodkey is located in Finney County
      • Google driving directions:
      • From your current location to Rodkey
      • From Charleston to Rodkey
    • Holcomb
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Holcomb have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Holcomb
      • Holcomb is located in Finney County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,042 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Holcomb <2>
  • Ford County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Charleston, with the one closest to Charleston listed first.
    • Howell
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Howell. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<1>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Howell
      • Howell is located in Ford County
      • Google driving directions:
      • From your current location to Howell
      • From Charleston to Howell
    • Dodge City
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
  • Haskell County

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

Cemeteries Near Charleston ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Charleston.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Charleston, with the one closest to Charleston 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 in 1895, Charleston had railroad service and no post office.

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

  • Ingalls
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Ingalls. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<1>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ingalls
    • Ingalls is located in Gray County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 284 people
    • Google driving directions:
    • From your current location to Ingalls
    • From Charleston to Ingalls
  • Pierceville
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Pierceville have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pierceville
    • Pierceville is located in Finney County
  • Mansfield
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Mansfield have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mansfield
    • Mansfield is located in Finney County
  • Cimarron
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
  • Plymell
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Plymell have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Plymell
    • Plymell is located in Finney County
  • Garden City
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Montezuma
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
  • Kalvesta
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Kalvesta. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<1>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kalvesta
    • Kalvesta is located in Finney County
    • Google driving directions:
    • From your current location to Kalvesta
    • From Charleston to Kalvesta
  • Howell
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Howell. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<1>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Howell
    • Howell is located in Ford County
    • Google driving directions:
    • From your current location to Howell
    • From Charleston to Howell
  • Ravanna ‑ Historic
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Ensign
    (23 miles [37 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 Charleston. See our List of 1890's Communities around Charleston.

Newspapers Published in Charleston ...

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 37 newspapers that have been published in the area around Charleston.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Charleston, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<6>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Charleston.

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 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 Charleston:

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

The official website for State of Kansas: https://portal.kansas.gov/

Footnotes ...

<1>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.
<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 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.
<4>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.
<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 Charleston, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<6>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Charleston) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Charleston. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 37.8646, Longitude: -100.5647    









 

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This page was last modified/updated: 28 Apr 2025