RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of New Mexico >> Otero County >> Avis >> 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 Avis (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 Avis. 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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Avis is located in Otero County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Otero County: Chaves, Dona Ana, Eddy, Lincoln, Sierra, Culberson (TX) & Hudspeth (TX).

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

  • Otero County     (The home county of Avis)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Avis, with the one closest to Avis listed first.
    • Pinon
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Weed
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Sacramento
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
    • Mayhill
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
    • Timberon
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
    • Hortonville
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
      • Hortonville is located in Otero County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hortonville
    • Sunspot
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
      • Sunspot is located in Otero County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sunspot
    • Cloudcroft
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Mountain Park
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Mountain Park is located in Otero County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mountain Park
    • High Rolls
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
      • High Rolls is located in Otero County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for High Rolls
  • Chaves County
    • Dunken ‑ Historic
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Dunken is located in Chaves County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dunken

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

Cemeteries Near Avis ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Avis.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Avis, with the one closest to Avis listed first.

  • Avis Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • Pinon Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Weed Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Agua Chiquita Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Agua Chiquita Cemetery
    • The Agua Chiquita Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Miller Flats Road Cemetery
  • Aqua Chiquita
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
  • Lusk Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
  • Jeffers Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
  • Cox Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Mayhill Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
  • Carner Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
  • Mountain Acres Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
  • Mountain Acres Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
  • Continue List   (6 more) ...
    • Parker Cemetery
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
    • James Canyon Cemetery
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Elk Cemetery
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Elk Cemetery
      • To give a relative sense of its location, the Elk Cemetery is located 12 miles [19.3 km]<3> to the east of Mayhill.
      • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #38046 <2>

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

Newspapers Published in Avis ...

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 8 newspapers that have been published in the area around Avis.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Avis, there are papers which were published within 24 miles [38.6 km]. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Avis.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we begin with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These 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 Avis:

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>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 drawn from Point A (ie- Avis) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.