RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of New Mexico >> McKinley County >> Mexican Springs >> Genealogy HelperIndex...










Learn About
The Commemorative
Quarter for
New Mexico

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 Mexican Springs (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 Mexican Springs. 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 Mexican Springs ...

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.

Mexican Springs has also been known as: Nakai Beto, Nakai Bito, Nakaibeto and Nakaibito.

  • A typical abbreviation for Mexican Springs: Mexican Spgs. (or less commonly used: Mexican Spngs. or Mexican Sprngs.)

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 northeast 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 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.

Mexican Springs 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 Mexican Springs. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Mexican Springs:

  • McKinley County     (The home county of Mexican Springs)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Mexican Springs, with the one closest to Mexican Springs listed first.
    • Tohatchi
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Twin Lakes
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Twin Lakes have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Twin Lakes
      • Twin Lakes is located in McKinley County
    • Brimhall Nizhoni
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Brimhall Nizhoni have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Brimhall Nizhoni
      • Brimhall Nizhoni is located in McKinley County
    • Yah-ta-hey
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Yah-ta-hey have been provided by the GNIS.<2> 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
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rock Springs
      • Rock Springs is located in McKinley County
    • Navajo
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Navajo have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Navajo
      • Navajo is located in McKinley County
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Navajo <1>
    • Tse Bonito
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Tse Bonito have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tse Bonito
      • Tse Bonito is located in McKinley County
    • Gallup
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
      • 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 <1>
    • Navajo Wingate Village
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Navajo Wingate Village have been provided by the GNIS.<2> 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
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Defiance
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Defiance
      • Defiance is located in McKinley County
    • Church Rock
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Red Rock
      (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Red Rock
      • Red Rock is located in McKinley County
  • San Juan County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Mexican Springs, with the one closest to Mexican Springs listed first.
    • Crystal
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Crystal
      • Crystal is located in San Juan County
    • Naschitti
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Naschitti have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Naschitti
      • Naschitti is located in San Juan County
    • Sheep Springs
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
  • Apache County (AZ)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Mexican Springs, with the one closest to Mexican Springs listed first.
    • Fort Defiance
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
    • Window Rock
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Saint Michaels
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)
    • Sawmill
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sawmill
      • Sawmill is located in Apache County (AZ)
    • Hunters Point
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hunters Point
      • Hunters Point is located in Apache County (AZ)
    • Oak Springs
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
      • 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 Mexican Springs, see our County-by-County Page for Mexican Springs.

Newspapers Published in Mexican Springs ...

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 36 newspapers that have been published in the area around Mexican Springs.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Mexican Springs, there are papers which were published within 20 miles [32.2 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Mexican Springs.

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 Mexican Springs:

Cemeteries Near Mexican Springs ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Mexican Springs.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Mexican Springs, with the one closest to Mexican Springs 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.<5>

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

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

Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for Mexican Springs. 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>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 obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Mexican Springs) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Mexican Springs. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 35.7896, Longitude: -108.8236    
<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>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 Mexican Springs, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

Copyright 2024
All Rights Reserved

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: 07 Apr 2024