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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 Pondsville (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 Pondsville. 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 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.

Pondsville is located in Washington County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Washington County: Allegany, Frederick, Franklin (PA), Fulton (PA), Loudoun (VA), Berkeley (WV), Jefferson (WV) & Morgan (WV).

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

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

Cemeteries Near Pondsville ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Pondsville.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Pondsville, with the one closest to Pondsville 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.<4>

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

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

  • Cavetown
    (Less than 2 miles to the north)
  • Smithsburg
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the north)
  • Chewsville
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Chewsville is located in Washington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Chewsville
  • Beaver Creek
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Beaver Creek is located in Washington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Beaver Creek
  • Wolfsville
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Wolfsville is located in Frederick County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wolfsville
  • Garfield
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
    • Garfield is located in Frederick County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Garfield
  • Edgemont
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Edgemont is located in Washington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Edgemont
  • Pleasant Walk
    (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
  • Leitersburg
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
  • Foxville
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
    • Foxville is located in Frederick County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Foxville
  • Benevola
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Benevola is located in Washington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Benevola
  • Mapleville
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Mapleville is located in Washington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mapleville
  • Continue List   (14 more) ...
    • Ellerton
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
      • Ellerton is located in Frederick County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ellerton
    • Blue Mountain
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Blue Mountain is located in Washington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Blue Mountain
    • Ringgold
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
      • Ringgold is located in Washington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ringgold

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

Newspapers Published in Pondsville ...

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 Pondsville.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Pondsville, there are papers which were published within 8 miles [12.9 km]<5>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Pondsville.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first turn to the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These 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 Pondsville:

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 Maryland Historical Trust (MHT) has created and maintains a database of historic properties that is called MIHP (for the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties). More information about the MHT and MIHP can be found on their website: mht.maryland.gov.
<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>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 Pondsville, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<5>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a '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- Pondsville) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.