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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 Harvard (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 Harvard. 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 and hospitals 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.

Harvard is located in Clay County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Clay County: Adams, Fillmore, Hamilton, Nuckolls, Webster & York.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Harvard ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Harvard.

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 Harvard covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Harvard, with the one closest to Harvard 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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Harvard had a population of 1,076 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Harvard had a population of 966 people.

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

  • Inland
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
  • Clay Center
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
  • Verona
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Verona. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Verona
    • Verona is located in Clay County
    • Google driving directions:
    • From your current location to Verona
    • From Harvard to Verona
  • Saronville
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Saronville have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Saronville
    • Saronville is located in Clay County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 45 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Saronville <1>
  • Stockham
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Stockham have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Stockham
    • Stockham is located in Hamilton County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 44 people
  • Trumbull
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Glenvil
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Fairfield
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)
  • Sutton
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
  • Hansen
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
  • Hastings
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
  • Spring Ranch ‑ Historic
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Spring Ranch have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Spring Ranch
    • Spring Ranch is located in Clay County
  • Continue List   (14 more) ...
    • Aurora
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Aurora have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Aurora
      • Aurora is located in Hamilton County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 4,490 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Aurora <1>
    • Doniphan
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Doniphan have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Doniphan
      • Doniphan is located in Hall County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 832 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Doniphan <1>
    • Deweese
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Harvard ...

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 134 newspapers that have been published in the area around Harvard.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Harvard. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Harvard and those printed in the larger area surrounding Harvard.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<5> of Harvard.

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 Harvard:

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

The official website for State of Nebraska: https://www.nebraska.gov/

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 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.
<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 things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Harvard) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Harvard. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 40.6199, Longitude: -98.0972    
<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 Harvard, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 28 Apr 2025