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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 Clayton (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 Clayton. 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 southwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals were in the next county to the west. 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 west 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.

Clayton is located in Union County and is the County Seat.

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 Union County: Baca (CO), Las Animas (CO), Colfax, Harding, Quay, Cimarron (OK), Dallam (TX) & Hartley (TX).

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

  • Union County     (The home county of Clayton)
  • Cimarron County (OK)
  • Dallam County (TX)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Clayton, with the one closest to Clayton listed first.
    • Texline
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Perico ‑ Historic
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Perico have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Perico
      • Perico is located in Dallam County (TX)

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

Cemeteries Near Clayton ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Clayton.

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

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

  • Clayton Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Clayton Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Clayton Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • County Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the County Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the County Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • IOOF Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the IOOF Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the IOOF Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Antioch Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Antioch Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Antioch Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Wanette Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Wanette Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Wanette Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Otto Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Otto Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Otto Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Creeds Chapel Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Creeds Chapel Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Creeds Chapel Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Rinker Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Rinker Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Rinker Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Thomas Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Thomas Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Thomas Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Grandview Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Grandview Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Grandview Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Moses Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Moses Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Moses Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Sedan Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Sedan Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Sedan Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Continue List   (13 more) ...
    • Puertocito Cemetery
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Puertocito Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Puertocito Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Atencio Cemetery
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Sanchez Cemetery
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Sanchez Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Sanchez 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.<4>

While we didn't find Clayton in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Clayton.

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Clayton ...

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 14 newspapers that have been published in the area around Clayton.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Clayton. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Clayton and those printed in the larger area surrounding Clayton.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 25 miles [40.2 km]<3> of Clayton.

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 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 Clayton:

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

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

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 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>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 drawn from Point A (ie- Clayton) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Clayton. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 36.4521, Longitude: -103.1841    
<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 Clayton, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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In closing, please keep in mind that we can not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of the information on this website, so use with care. We encourage you to double-check the information that is critical to you.

If you've found an error or have additional information that you would like to share, please don't hesitate to write: Click here to contact us.

This page was last modified/updated: 28 Apr 2025