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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 Church Rock (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 Church Rock. 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 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.

Church Rock is located in McKinley County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of McKinley County: Apache (AZ), Cibola, San Juan & Sandoval.

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

  • McKinley County     (The home county of Church Rock)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Church Rock, with the one closest to Church Rock listed first.
    • Navajo Wingate Village
      (Less than 2 miles to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Navajo Wingate Village have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Navajo Wingate Village
      • Navajo Wingate Village is located in McKinley County
    • Rehoboth
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
    • Fort Wingate
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Gallup
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gallup
      • Gallup is located in McKinley County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 21,253 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Gallup <2>
    • Bread Springs
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bread Springs
      • Bread Springs is located in McKinley County
    • Red Rock
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Red Rock
      • Red Rock is located in McKinley County
    • Yah-ta-hey
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Yah-ta-hey have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Yah-ta-hey
      • Yah-ta-hey is located in McKinley County
    • Rock Springs
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rock Springs
      • Rock Springs is located in McKinley County
    • Twin Lakes
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Twin Lakes have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Twin Lakes
      • Twin Lakes is located in McKinley County
    • Brimhall Nizhoni
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Brimhall Nizhoni have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Brimhall Nizhoni
      • Brimhall Nizhoni is located in McKinley County
    • Defiance
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Defiance
      • Defiance is located in McKinley County
    • Continental Divide
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Apache County (AZ)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Church Rock, with the one closest to Church Rock listed first.
    • Window Rock
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the west)
    • Lupton
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Hunters Point
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hunters Point
      • Hunters Point is located in Apache County (AZ)
    • Saint Michaels
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
    • Fort Defiance
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Oak Springs
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oak Springs
      • Oak Springs is located in Apache County (AZ)

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

Newspapers Published in Church Rock ...

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 45 newspapers that have been published in the area around Church Rock.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Church Rock, there are papers which were published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Church Rock.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we start with 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 Church Rock:

Cemeteries Near Church Rock ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Church Rock.

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

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

  • Hillcrest Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
  • Torreon Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for the Torreon Cemetery. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<5>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Torreon Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #38487 <4>
  • McGaffey Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the McGaffey Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the McGaffey Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #38219 <4>
  • Gallup City Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Gallup City Cemetery is located 5 miles [8 km]<3> to the east of Gallup.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Gallup City Cemetery
  • Sunset Memorial Gardens
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
  • Pinehaven Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Lone Pine Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
  • Mormon Colony Cemetery
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Mormon Colony Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Mormon Colony Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #38247 <4>
  • Ramah Cemetery
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
  • Ft. Defiance Veterans Memorial Cemetery
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Bowman Memorial Park
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for the Bowman Memorial Park. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<5>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Bowman Memorial Park
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #56978 <4>

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

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

The official website for McKinley County: www.co.mckinley.nm.us/

The official website for State of New Mexico: www.newmexico.gov/

Footnotes ...

<1>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.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a '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- Church Rock) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Church Rock. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 35.5352, Longitude: -108.6014    
<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>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.




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 07 Apr 2024