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 Christmas (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 Christmas. 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 southwest 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 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 west 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.
Christmas is located in Alger County.
To see how the shape of Michigan's counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.
The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Alger County: Delta, Luce, Marquette & Schoolcraft.
Below are the counties that are near Christmas. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Christmas:
- Alger County (The home county of Christmas)
- The following are listed by their distance from Christmas, with the one closest to Christmas listed first.
- Munising
(2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
- Munising Junction
(4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
- Munising Junction is located in Alger County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Munising Junction
- Wetmore
(5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
- Indian Town
(6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
- Indian Town is located in Alger County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Indian Town
- Au Train
(6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
- Juniper
(7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
- Juniper is located in Alger County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Juniper
- Doty
(9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
- Doty is located in Alger County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Doty
- Slapneck ‑ Historic
(10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
- Slapneck is located in Alger County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Slapneck
- Shingleton
(12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
- Chatham
(12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
- Melstrand
(13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
- Melstrand is located in Alger County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Melstrand
- Eben Junction
(13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
- Delta County
- Osier
(26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
- Osier is located in Delta County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Osier
- Marquette County
- The following are listed by their distance from Christmas, with the one closest to Christmas listed first.
- New Dalton
(24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
- New Dalton is located in Marquette County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for New Dalton
- Carlshend
(26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
- Carlshend is located in Marquette County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Carlshend
- Skandia
(26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
- Schoolcraft County
- The following are listed by their distance from Christmas, with the one closest to Christmas listed first.
- Steuben
(20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
- Steuben is located in Schoolcraft County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Steuben
- Creighton
(21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
- Creighton is located in Schoolcraft County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Creighton
- Walsh
(25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
- Walsh is located in Schoolcraft County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Walsh
For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Christmas, see our County-by-County Page for Christmas.
Cemeteries Near Christmas ...
Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Christmas.
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 Christmas - one of the links might be able to help.
If not found below, our Cemetery List for Christmas covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.
The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Christmas, with the one closest to Christmas listed first.
- Grand Island Cemetery
(3 miles [4.8 km] to the northeast)
- Indian Cemetery
(3 miles [4.8 km] to the northeast)
- Maple Grove Cemetery
(4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
- Reilly's Graves
(4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
- Munising Twp. Cemetery
(5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
- Au Train Twp. Cemetery
(6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
- Pine Grove Cemetery
(10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
- Trudell Family Cemetery
(11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
- Limestone Twp. Cemetery
(16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
- Deerton Cemetery
(16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Deerton Cemetery
- The Deerton Cemetery has also been known as:
- Onota Twp. Cemetery
- Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #364 <2>
- Mathias Twp. Cemetery
(20 miles [32.2 km] to the southwest)
- Emmanuel Lutheran Church Cemetery
(25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
- Continue List (8 more) ...
- Haglund Cemetery
(25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
- UMC Cemetery
(25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
- West Branch Cemetery
(27 miles [43.5 km] to the west)
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 Christmas in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Christmas.
These communities are listed based on their distance from Christmas, with the one closest to Christmas listed first.
- Munising
(2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
- Au Train
(6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
- Rock River
(10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
- Rock River is located in Alger County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rock River
- Shingleton
(12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
- Onota
(14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
- Onota is located in Alger County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Onota
- Deerton
(16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
- Creighton
(21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
- Creighton is located in Schoolcraft County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Creighton
- Gordon
(25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
- Gordon is located in Marquette County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gordon
We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Christmas. See our List of 1890's Communities around Christmas.
Newspapers Published in Christmas ...
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 9 newspapers that have been published in the area around Christmas.
Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Christmas, there are papers which were published within 6 miles [9.7 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Christmas.
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 websites either 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 Christmas:
- Websites specific to Michigan
- Pages specific to Alger County
- Genealogy information for nearby counties
- Delta County
- Marquette County
- Schoolcraft County
- Cemetery Information and Directories for Michigan
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 Christmas, 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- Christmas) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'. |