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 Salt Lake (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 Salt Lake. 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 Salt Lake ...

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 Salt Lake: Salt Lk.

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 northwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors were in the next county to the west. 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 west 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.

Salt Lake is located in Catron 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 Catron County: Apache (AZ), Greenlee (AZ), Cibola, Grant, Sierra & Socorro.

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

• Catron County     (The home county of Salt Lake)
  • The following are listed by their distance from Salt Lake, with the one closest to Salt Lake listed first.
  • Quemado
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Quemado
    • Quemado is located in Catron County
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Quemado <1>
  • Omega
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Omega
    • Omega is located in Catron County
• Cibola County
  • Fence Lake
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fence Lake
    • Fence Lake is located in Cibola County
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Fence Lake <1>

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

Newspapers Published in Salt Lake ...

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 2 newspapers that have been published in the area around Salt Lake.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Salt Lake, there are papers which were published within 17 miles [27.4 km]<2>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Salt Lake.

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 Salt Lake:

• 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 Catron County
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails

• Genealogy information for nearby counties
  • Cibola County
    • Jump to Cyndi's List
    • Jump to Family Search
    • Jump to Genealogy Trails

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

Cemeteries Near Salt Lake ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Salt Lake.

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

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

• Morelos Cemetery
  (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Morelos Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Morelos Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #38245 <4>
• Quemado Community Cemetery
  (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
  • The Quemado Community Cemetery has also been known as:
  • Quemado Cemetery
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Quemado Community Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #38347 <4>
• Atarque Cemetery
  (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Atarque Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Atarque Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #37946 <4>
• Forest Hill Cemetery
  (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
  • The Forest Hill Cemetery has also been known as:
  • Taylor Cemetery
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Forest Hill Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #38069 <4>

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

Off-the-Road Links ...

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

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