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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 Saint Francis (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 Saint Francis. 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 Saint Francis ...

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 Saint Francis: St. Francis

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

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 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.

Saint Francis 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 Saint Francis. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Saint Francis:

  • Aroostook County     (The home county of Saint Francis)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Saint Francis, with the one closest to Saint Francis listed first.
    • Saint John Plantation
      (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
      • Saint John Plantation is located in Aroostook County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Saint John Plantation
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 248 people
    • Allagash
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
      • Allagash is located in Aroostook County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Allagash
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 215 people
    • Fort Kent Village
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
      • Fort Kent Village is located in Aroostook County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fort Kent Village
    • Soldier Pond
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
    • Wallagrass
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
      • Wallagrass is located in Aroostook County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wallagrass
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 520 people
    • Fort Kent Mills
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
    • Fort Kent
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Eagle Lake
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
    • New Canada
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
      • New Canada is located in Aroostook County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for New Canada
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 304 people
    • Winterville Plantation
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southeast)
      • Winterville Plantation is located in Aroostook County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Winterville Plantation
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 205 people
    • Quimby
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Quimby is located in Aroostook County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Quimby
    • Winterville
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
      • Winterville is located in Aroostook County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Winterville
    • Upper Frenchville
      (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
      • Upper Frenchville is located in Aroostook County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Upper Frenchville

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

Cemeteries Near Saint Francis ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Saint Francis.

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 Saint Francis - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Old St. Charles Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • St. Pauls Congregational Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
  • St. Charles Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
  • St. John Baptist Church Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
  • St. John Catholic Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • St. Paul Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Bolton Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
  • St. Joseph Catholic Church Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • St. Josephs the Helper Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • Sacred Heart Catholic Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • St. Josephs Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • Congregational Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
  • Continue List   (15 more) ...
    • St. Louis Catholic Cemetery
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for St. Louis Catholic Cemetery
      • To give a relative sense of its location, the St. Louis Catholic Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located in Fort Kent.
      • The St. Louis Catholic Cemetery has also been known as:
      • Old St. Louis Cemetery
      • St. Louis Cemetery Old
      • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2393985 <2>
    • St. Louis Cemetery
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
    • St. Marys Cemetery
      (16 miles [25.7 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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Saint Francis had a population of 25 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service. In 2020, Saint Francis had a population of 439 people.

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

  • Wallagrass
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
    • Wallagrass is located in Aroostook County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wallagrass
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 520 people
  • Fort Kent
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Eagle Lake
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Upper Frenchville
    (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
    • Upper Frenchville is located in Aroostook County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Upper Frenchville
  • Frenchville
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)

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

Newspapers Published in Saint Francis ...

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 2 newspapers that have been published in the area around Saint Francis.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Saint Francis, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Saint Francis.

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 Saint Francis:

  • Genealogy information for nearby counties

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 Saint Francis, 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' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Saint Francis) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.