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 Grand Isle (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 Grand Isle. 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 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.
Grand Isle is located in Aroostook County.
To see how the shape of Maine's counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.
The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Aroostook County: Penobscot, Piscataquis, Somerset & Washington.
Below are the counties that are near Grand Isle. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Grand Isle:
- Aroostook County (The home county of Grand Isle)
- The following are listed by their distance from Grand Isle, with the one closest to Grand Isle listed first.
- Lille
(2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
- Lille is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lille
- Saint David
(4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
- Madawaska
(8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
- Saint Agatha
(8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
- Frenchville
(10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
- Sinclair
(11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
- Upper Frenchville
(12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
- Upper Frenchville is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Upper Frenchville
- Van Buren
(14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
- Cyr Plantation
(16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
- Cyr Plantation is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cyr Plantation
- Population from the 2020 Census: 94 people
- Stockholm
(18 miles [29 km] to the south)
- Fort Kent Mills
(20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
- Fort Kent
(20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
- Fort Kent Village
(21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
- Fort Kent Village is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fort Kent Village
For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Grand Isle, see our County-by-County Page for Grand Isle.
Cemeteries Near Grand Isle ...
Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Grand Isle.
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 Grand Isle - one of the links might be able to help.
If not found below, our Cemetery List for Grand Isle covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.
The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Grand Isle, with the one closest to Grand Isle listed first.
- St. Gerard Cemetery
(Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
- Mt. Carmel Cemetery
(2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
- Notre Dame du Mt. Carmel Cemetery
(2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
- St. Basile Cemetery
(5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
- St. David Cemetery
(6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
- St. Agatha Catholic Church Cemetery
(8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for St. Agatha Catholic Church Cemetery
- To give a relative sense of its location, the St. Agatha Catholic Church Cemetery is located in Saint Agatha.
- The St. Agatha Catholic Church Cemetery has also been known as:
- St. Agatha Cemetery
- St. Agatha Upper Cemetery
- Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #1547322 <2>
- St. Agatha Lower Cemetery
(8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
- St. Thomas Aquinas Cemetery
(9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
- St. Josephs Cemetery
(10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
- St. Luce Catholic Cemetery
(12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
- St. Leonard Cemetery
(13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
- St. Jacques Church Cemetery
(13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
- Continue List (41 more) ...
- St. Hilaire Cemetery
(13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for St. Hilaire Cemetery
- The St. Hilaire Cemetery has also been known as:
- Cimetiere St. Hilaire
- St. Etropus Cemetery
(14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
- Grand Riviere Cemetery
(14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
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>
While we didn't find Grand Isle in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Grand Isle.
These communities are listed based on their distance from Grand Isle, with the one closest to Grand Isle listed first.
- Saint David
(4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
- Frenchville
(10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
- Upper Frenchville
(12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
- Upper Frenchville is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Upper Frenchville
- Van Buren
(14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
- Jemtland
(20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
- Jemtland is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jemtland
- Fort Kent
(20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
- Acadia
(22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
- Acadia is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Acadia
- Hamlin
(23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
- Hamlin is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hamlin
- Population from the 2020 Census: 202 people
- Wallagrass
(24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
- Wallagrass is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wallagrass
- Population from the 2020 Census: 520 people
- Caswell
(24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
- Caswell is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Caswell
- Population from the 2020 Census: 281 people
- New Sweden
(25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
- North Lyndon
(25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
- North Lyndon is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North Lyndon
- Eagle Lake
(27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Grand Isle. See our List of 1890's Communities around Grand Isle.
Newspapers Published in Grand Isle ...
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 4 newspapers that have been published in the area around Grand Isle.
Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Grand Isle, there are papers which were published within 20 miles [32.2 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Grand Isle.
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 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 Grand Isle:
- Websites specific to Maine
- Pages specific to Aroostook County
- Genealogy information for nearby counties
- Cemetery Information and Directories for Maine
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 Grand Isle, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy. |
| <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 from Point A (ie- Grand Isle) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'. |