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 Columbus (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 Columbus. 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 hospitals and 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.

Columbus is located in Luna 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 Luna County: Dona Ana, Grant, Hidalgo & Sierra.

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

• Luna County     (The home county of Columbus)
  • The following are listed by their distance from Columbus, with the one closest to Columbus listed first.
  • Border City ‑ Historic
    (Less than 2 miles to the north)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Border City have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Border City
    • Border City is located in Luna County
  • Sunshine ‑ Historic
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sunshine
    • Sunshine is located in Luna County

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

Newspapers Published in Columbus ...

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 7 newspapers that have been published in the area around Columbus.

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 Columbus:

• Websites specific to New Mexico
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails
  • Website for the State Records Center and Archives

• Pages specific to Luna County
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails

• Genealogy information for nearby counties

• Cemetery Information and Directories for New Mexico
  • Cemetery Junction: Cemeteries of New Mexico
  • Cyndi's List
  • Cemeteries of New Mexico
  • Cemeteries of Luna County
  • FamilySearch.org: Cemeteries of New Mexico
  • Find-A-Grave: Home Page
  • Interment.net
  • Cemeteries of New Mexico

Cemeteries Near Columbus ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Columbus.

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

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

• Valley Heights Cemetery
  (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Valley Heights Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2189785 <2>
• Carroll Cemetery
  (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Carroll Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Carroll Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #37983 <2>
• Lewis Flats Cemetery
  (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
  • To give a relative sense of its location, the Lewis Flats Cemetery is located 11 miles [17.7 km]<3> to the west of Deming.
  • The Lewis Flats Cemetery has also been known as:
  • Lewis Cemetery
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Lewis Flats Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #38181 <2>
• Victorio Cemetery
  (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Victorio Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Victorio Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #38501 <2>

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

Off-the-Road Links ...

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

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