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 Goffs Falls (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 Goffs Falls. 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 Goffs Falls ...
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 have occurred.
While the name of this community is Goffs Falls, be aware that it's the common practice of mapmakers to remove the apostrophe from possessive names<1>. So Goffs Falls may originally have been Goff's Falls.
Sometimes the trailing 's' might be dropped altogether, in which case Goffs Falls might be written as Goff Falls.
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 southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.
South Merrimack (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for South Merrimack. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<4>
East Milford (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for East Milford. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<4>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Eastview. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<4>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Pembroke. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<4>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for East Concord. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<4>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Ward Hill. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<4>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Haggetts. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<4>
The following are listed by their distance from Goffs Falls, with the one closest to Goffs Falls listed first.
Collinsville (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Collinsville. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<4>
Lunenburg Station is located in Worcester County (MA)
South Fitchburg (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for South Fitchburg. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<4>
Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Goffs Falls.
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 Goffs Falls covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.
The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Goffs Falls, with the one closest to Goffs Falls listed first.
Goffs Falls Cemetery (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the St. Augustine Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
Pine Grove Cemetery (2 miles [3.2 km] to the north)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the St. Augustine Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
Piscataquog Cemetery (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Old St. Josephs Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
Manchester Center Cemetery (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northeast)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Manchester Center Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
Faith Baptist Church Cemetery (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the New St. Josephs Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Valley Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
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 Goffs Falls had a population of 100 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service.
These communities are listed based on their distance from Goffs Falls, with the one closest to Goffs Falls listed first.
North Londonderry (2 miles [3.2 km] to the east)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for North Londonderry have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Goffs Falls. See our List of 1890's Communities around Goffs Falls.
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 271 newspapers that have been published in the area around Goffs Falls.
Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Goffs Falls, there are papers which were published within 18 miles [29 km]<7>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Goffs Falls.
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 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 Goffs Falls:
It's generally believed that possessive apostrophes are removed to prevent confusion on maps where the apostrophe may be confused with a cartographic symbol. While this is generally true, it's not uncommon to find possessive apostrophes in administrative names (such as towns or counties).
<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>
While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<4>
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.
<5>
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.
<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 Goffs Falls, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<7>
Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Goffs Falls) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Goffs Falls. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 42.9320, Longitude: -71.4526 In this case, the coordinates for Goffs Falls have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).