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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 Ponshewaing (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 Ponshewaing. 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.

Ponshewaing is located in Emmet County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Emmet County: Charlevoix & Cheboygan.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Ponshewaing ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Ponshewaing.

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.

If you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our selection of Genealogy Websites (see below).

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Ponshewaing, with the one closest to Ponshewaing 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.<6>

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

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

  • Alanson
    (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Alanson have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alanson
    • Alanson is located in Emmet County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 755 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Alanson <2>
  • Oden
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Epsilon
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Epsilon have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Epsilon
    • Epsilon is located in Emmet County
  • Conway
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Conway have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Conway
    • Conway is located in Emmet County
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Conway <2>
  • Burt Lake
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Burt Lake have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Burt Lake
    • Burt Lake is located in Cheboygan County
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Burt Lake <2>
  • Wildwood
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Wildwood. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wildwood
    • Wildwood is located in Cheboygan County
    • Google driving directions:
    • From your current location to Wildwood
    • From Ponshewaing to Wildwood
  • Ayr
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Ayr have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ayr
    • Ayr is located in Emmet County
  • Brutus
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Brutus have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Brutus
    • Brutus is located in Emmet County
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Brutus <2>
  • Bay View
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
  • Kegomic ‑ Historic
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Kegomic. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kegomic
    • Kegomic is located in Emmet County
    • Google driving directions:
    • From your current location to Kegomic
    • From Ponshewaing to Kegomic
  • Petoskey
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Pleasant View
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Pleasant View have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pleasant View
    • Pleasant View is located in Emmet County
  • Continue List   (14 more) ...

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

Newspapers Published in Ponshewaing ...

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 75 newspapers that have been published in the area around Ponshewaing.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Ponshewaing, there are papers which were published within 28 miles [45.1 km]<5>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Ponshewaing.

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 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 Ponshewaing:

Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for Ponshewaing. If you can help, please contact us through our Feedback Page.

The official website for Emmet County: www.co.emmet.mi.us/

The official website for State of Michigan: https://www.michigan.gov/

Footnotes ...

<1>The location has been supplied by the Geographic Names Information System - which is maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). While these values should be definitive, we found that accuracy can vary and you should double-check the location if accuracy is required.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>An 'estimated' location is one where we have been given GPS coordinates, but are unable to verify the accuracy of those coordinates. That said, we have some confidence that we have placed the marker near the actual location. A typical reason for being unable to verify a location is that it might be on private property or maybe historic and gone without an obvious trace.
<4>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.
<5>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Ponshewaing) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Ponshewaing. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 45.4203, Longitude: -84.8040    
<6>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 Ponshewaing, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 28 Apr 2025