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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of New Mexico >> San Miguel County >> Bernal >> 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 Bernal (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 Bernal. 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.

Bernal is located in San Miguel 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 San Miguel County: Guadalupe, Harding, Mora, Quay, Santa Fe & Torrance.

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

  • San Miguel County     (The home county of Bernal)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Bernal, with the one closest to Bernal listed first.
    • Serafina
      (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
    • Chapelle
      (Less than 2 miles to the east)
      • Chapelle is located in San Miguel County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Chapelle
    • Tecolote
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
      • Tecolote is located in San Miguel County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tecolote
    • Apache Springs
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
      • Apache Springs is located in San Miguel County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Apache Springs
    • Coruco
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
      • Coruco is located in San Miguel County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Coruco
    • El Ancon
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
      • El Ancon is located in San Miguel County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for El Ancon
    • Ribera
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
    • San Miguel
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
      • San Miguel is located in San Miguel County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for San Miguel
    • El Cerrito
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
      • El Cerrito is located in San Miguel County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for El Cerrito
    • Villanueva
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
    • Romero
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Romero is located in San Miguel County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Romero
    • Ilfeld
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
  • Guadalupe County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Bernal, with the one closest to Bernal listed first.
    • Upper Anton Chico
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
      • Upper Anton Chico is located in Guadalupe County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Upper Anton Chico
    • Anton Chico
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Dahlia
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
      • Dahlia is located in Guadalupe County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dahlia
    • Dilia
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Dilia is located in Guadalupe County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dilia
  • Santa Fe County

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

Cemeteries Near Bernal ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Bernal.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Bernal, with the one closest to Bernal 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.<3>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Bernal had a population of 49 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service.

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

  • Blanchard
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the west)
    • Blanchard is located in San Miguel County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Blanchard
  • Tecolote
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
    • Tecolote is located in San Miguel County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tecolote
  • San Miguel
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
    • San Miguel is located in San Miguel County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for San Miguel
  • Villanueva
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
  • Sands
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
    • Sands is located in San Miguel County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sands
  • Romero
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Romero is located in San Miguel County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Romero
  • Las Vegas
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
  • East Las Vegas ‑ Historic
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
    • East Las Vegas is located in San Miguel County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for East Las Vegas
  • Hot Springs
    (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
    • Hot Springs is located in San Miguel County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hot Springs
  • Rowe
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
  • Pecos
    (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
    • Pecos is located in San Miguel County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pecos
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,313 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Pecos <1>
  • Onava
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Onava is located in San Miguel County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Onava
  • Continue List   (6 more) ...
    • Los Alamos
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
      • Los Alamos is located in San Miguel County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Los Alamos
    • Sapello
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
    • San Ignacio
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
      • San Ignacio is located in San Miguel County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for San Ignacio

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

Newspapers Published in Bernal ...

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 74 newspapers that have been published in the area around Bernal.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Bernal, there are papers which were published within 23 miles [37 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Bernal.

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 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 Bernal:

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>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 Bernal, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Bernal) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.