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 Madawaska (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 Madawaska. 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 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.
Madawaska 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 Madawaska. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Madawaska:
- Aroostook County (The home county of Madawaska)
- The following are listed by their distance from Madawaska, with the one closest to Madawaska listed first.
- Saint David
(4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
- Frenchville
(5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
- Saint Agatha
(7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
- Upper Frenchville
(7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
- Upper Frenchville is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Upper Frenchville
- Grand Isle
(8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
- Lille
(11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
- Lille is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lille
- Sinclair
(13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
- Fort Kent Mills
(14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
- Fort Kent
(14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
- Fort Kent Village
(15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
- Fort Kent Village is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fort Kent Village
- Soldier Pond
(18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)
- New Canada
(19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
- New Canada is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for New Canada
- Population from the 2020 Census: 304 people
For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Madawaska, see our County-by-County Page for Madawaska.
Cemeteries Near Madawaska ...
Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Madawaska.
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 Madawaska - one of the links might be able to help.
If not found below, our Cemetery List for Madawaska covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.
The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Madawaska, with the one closest to Madawaska listed first.
- St. Thomas Aquinas Cemetery
(Less than 2 miles to the west)
- St. David Cemetery
(2 miles [3.2 km] to the east)
- St. Basile Cemetery
(4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
- St. Jacques Church Cemetery
(6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
- St. Hilaire Cemetery
(7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for St. Hilaire Cemetery
- The St. Hilaire Cemetery has also been known as:
- Cimetiere St. Hilaire
- St. Luce Catholic Cemetery
(7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
- St. Agatha Catholic Church Cemetery
(7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
- 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 south)
- Baker Brook Cemetery
(9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
- St. Gerard Cemetery
(9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
- Mt. Carmel Cemetery
(11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
- Notre Dame du Mt. Carmel Cemetery
(11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
- Continue List (31 more) ...
- Holy Family Cemetery
(13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
- St. Josephs Cemetery
(13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
- St. Louis Cemetery
(14 miles [22.5 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.<3>
While we didn't find Madawaska in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Madawaska.
These communities are listed based on their distance from Madawaska, with the one closest to Madawaska listed first.
- Saint David
(4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
- Frenchville
(5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
- Upper Frenchville
(7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
- Upper Frenchville is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Upper Frenchville
- Fort Kent
(14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
- Wallagrass
(20 miles [32.2 km] to the southwest)
- Wallagrass is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wallagrass
- Population from the 2020 Census: 520 people
- Van Buren
(22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
- Eagle Lake
(25 miles [40.2 km] to the southwest)
- Jemtland
(25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
- Jemtland is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jemtland
- Acadia
(28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
- Acadia is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Acadia
- Saint Francis
(29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
- Saint Francis is located in Aroostook County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Saint Francis
- Population from the 2020 Census: 439 people
We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Madawaska. See our List of 1890's Communities around Madawaska.
Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Madawaska ...
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 Madawaska.
We have organized these newspapers into two lists:
- A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Madawaska. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Madawaska and those printed in the larger area surrounding Madawaska.
- An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 22 miles [35.4 km]<4> of Madawaska.
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 helpful 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 Madawaska:
- 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 Madawaska, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy. |
| <4> | Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or 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- Madawaska) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'. |