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The Commemorative Quarter for New Mexico





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 Fort Sumner (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 Fort Sumner. 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.

Name Variations for Fort Sumner ...

When searching records, keep in mind that names and their spelling can change over time. Our sources include documents like maps, railroad schedules, Travel, Express and Shipping Guides. Many of these documents date from the 1800's and it's common to find spelling differences.

Although we can't give a definitive list, hopefully the following will give you a feel for the variations that might have occurred.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Fort Sumner: Ft. Sumner

If you have information about these names (such as the reason for the change, date of change, the origin of the name), please Contact Us.

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 and doctors 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.

Fort Sumner is located in DeBaca 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 DeBaca County: Chaves, Guadalupe, Lincoln, Quay & Roosevelt.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Fort Sumner ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Fort Sumner.

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

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

  • Ft. Sumner Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
  • Old Ft. Sumner Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
  • La Lande Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the La Lande Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the La Lande Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Morris Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Morris Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Morris Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Ricardo Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Ricardo Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Ricardo Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Locust Grove Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Locust Grove Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Locust Grove Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Guadalupe Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Guadalupe Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Guadalupe Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Gerhardt Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Salado Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Salado Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Salado Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #38393 <3>
  • Salado Creek Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Salado Creek Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Salado Creek Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #38394 <3>
  • Taiban Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Taiban Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Taiban Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Lone Mesa Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Lone Mesa Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Lone Mesa Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #38187 <3>
  • Continue List   (13 more) ...

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Fort Sumner ...

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 9 newspapers that have been published in the area around Fort Sumner.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Fort Sumner. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Fort Sumner and those printed in the larger area surrounding Fort Sumner.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 22 miles [35.4 km]<4> of Fort Sumner.

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 websites either 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 Fort Sumner:

Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for Fort Sumner. 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>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>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.
<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- Fort Sumner) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Fort Sumner. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 34.4717, Longitude: -104.2440    









 

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Thank you for visiting our website.

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