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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 Blue River (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 Blue River. 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 Blue River ...

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 Blue River: Blue Riv.

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

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 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.

Blue River is located in Floyd County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Floyd County: Breathitt, Johnson, Knott, Magoffin, Martin & Pike.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Blue River ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Blue River.

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 Blue River - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Pitts Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
  • Dona Howard Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
  • Mort Arnett Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Goldie Johnson Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Ratliff Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
  • Frazer Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
  • Bays Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
  • Wright Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Bob Prater Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Prater Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
  • William England Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Dan Shepherd Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
  • Continue List   (588 more) ...
    • Jeff Shepherd Cemetery
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
    • Wireman Cemetery
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
    • Vanderpool Cemetery
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)

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.<2>

While we didn't find Blue River in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Blue River.

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

  • Goodloe
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • Dotson
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the north)
    • Dotson is located in Floyd County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dotson
  • Bonanza
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
    • Bonanza is located in Floyd County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bonanza
  • Alphoretta
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Alphoretta is located in Floyd County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alphoretta
  • Langley
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Langley is located in Floyd County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Langley
  • Dwale
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
    • Dwale is located in Floyd County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dwale
  • Prestonsburg
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Gapville
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
    • Gapville is located in Magoffin County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gapville
  • Gypsy
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Hueysville
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
  • Riceville
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Riceville is located in Johnson County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Riceville
  • East Point
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
  • Continue List   (14 more) ...
    • Ivyton
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Swampton
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
      • Swampton is located in Magoffin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Swampton
    • Lackey
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
      • Lackey is located in Floyd County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lackey

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

Newspapers Published in Blue River ...

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 Blue River.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Blue River, there are papers which were published within 15 miles [24.1 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Blue River.

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 websites either 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 Blue River:

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>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 Blue River, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<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 drawn from Point A (ie- Blue River) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.