RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of New Hampshire >> Rockingham County >> Derry >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

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 Derry (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 Derry. 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 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.

Derry is located in Rockingham County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Rockingham County: Essex (MA), York (ME), Hillsborough, Merrimack & Strafford.

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

  • Rockingham County     (The home county of Derry)
  • Hillsborough County
  • Merrimack County
  • Strafford County
  • Essex County (MA)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Derry, with the one closest to Derry listed first.
    • Ayers Village
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
      • Ayers Village is located in Essex County (MA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ayers Village
    • Tozier Corner
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Methuen
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
      • Methuen is located in Essex County (MA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Methuen
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 50,910 people
    • Bradford
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Haverhill
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Lawrence
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Ward Hill
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
    • North Andover
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
      • North Andover is located in Essex County (MA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North Andover
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 31,460 people
    • Merrimac
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
      • Merrimac is located in Essex County (MA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Merrimac
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 6,972 people
    • Rocks Village
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
      • Rocks Village is located in Essex County (MA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rocks Village
    • Haggetts
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
    • Groveland
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Middlesex County (MA)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Derry, with the one closest to Derry listed first.
    • Collinsville
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
    • Dracut
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
    • Tyngsbororough
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
      • Tyngsbororough is located in Middlesex County (MA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tyngsbororough
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 12,646 people
    • Lowell
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
    • North Chelmsford
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
    • Dunstable
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Ayres City
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
      • Ayres City is located in Middlesex County (MA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ayres City
    • Middlesex Village
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
      • Middlesex Village is located in Middlesex County (MA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Middlesex Village
    • Princeton Village
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
      • Princeton Village is located in Middlesex County (MA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Princeton Village
    • Chelmsford
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
    • Babbatasset Village
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
      • Babbatasset Village is located in Middlesex County (MA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Babbatasset Village
    • East Pepperell
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
      • East Pepperell is located in Middlesex County (MA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for East Pepperell
  • Worcester County (MA)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Derry, with the one closest to Derry listed first.
    • Shaker Village
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Shaker Village is located in Worcester County (MA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Shaker Village
    • Lunenburg
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Harvard
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Lunenburg Station
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Lunenburg Station is located in Worcester County (MA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lunenburg Station

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

Cemeteries Near Derry ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Derry.

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 Derry - one of the links might be able to help.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Derry, with the one closest to Derry 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.<4>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Derry had a population of 375 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service. In 2020, Derry had a population of 33,442 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in Derry ...

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 160 newspapers that have been published in the area around Derry.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Derry, there are papers which were published within 17 miles [27.4 km]<2>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Derry.

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 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 Derry:

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>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- Derry) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<3>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.
<4>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 Derry, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.