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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Massachusetts >> Norfolk County >> Charles River Village >> 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 Charles River Village (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 Charles River Village. 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 Charles River Village ...

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.

  • A typical abbreviation for Charles River Village: Charles Riv. Vlg. (in Canada, 'Vlge.' is the more common abbreviation.)
  • While the name of this community is Charles River Village, be aware that it's the common practice of mapmakers to remove the apostrophe from possessive names<1>. So Charles River Village may originally have been Charle's River Village.

    Sometimes the trailing 's' might be dropped altogether, in which case Charles River Village might be written as Charle River Village.

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 southeast 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 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.

Charles River Village is located in Norfolk County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Norfolk County: Bristol, Middlesex, Plymouth, Suffolk, Worcester & Providence (RI).

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

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

Cemeteries Near Charles River Village ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Charles River Village.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Charles River Village, with the one closest to Charles River Village 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 Charles River Village had a population of 250 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service.

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

  • Dover
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • Needham
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Needham is located in Norfolk County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Needham
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 31,537 people
  • South Natick
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the west)
    • South Natick is located in Middlesex County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for South Natick
  • Wellesley Hills
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
    • Wellesley Hills is located in Norfolk County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wellesley Hills
  • Ellis
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Ellis is located in Norfolk County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ellis
  • Islington
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Islington is located in Norfolk County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Islington
  • Dedham
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
  • Newton Highlands
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Eliot
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Newton Upper Falls
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Newton Upper Falls is located in Middlesex County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Newton Upper Falls
  • Waban
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
  • Newton Lower Falls
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
    • Newton Lower Falls is located in Middlesex County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Newton Lower Falls
  • Continue List   (16 more) ...

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

Newspapers Published in Charles River Village ...

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 63 newspapers that have been published in the area around Charles River Village.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Charles River Village, there are papers which were published within 9 miles [14.5 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Charles River Village.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we 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 Charles River Village:

Footnotes ...

<1>It's generally believed that possessive apostrophes are removed to prevent confusion on maps where the apostrophe may be confused with a cartographic symbol. While this is generally true, it's not uncommon to find possessive apostrophes in administrative names (such as towns or counties).
<2>The Massachusetts Historical Commission (MHC) has created and maintains a database of historic properties that is called MACRIS (for the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System). More information about the MHC and MACRIS can be found on their website: mhc-macris.net.

When visiting the MACRIS website, you might encounter their page requiring the 'Acceptance of Terms'. With your acceptance, you'll be transfered to the desired page.

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