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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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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 San Francisco (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 San Francisco. 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 doctors 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.

San Francisco is located in Socorro County.

To see how the shape of New Mexico's counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Socorro County: Catron, Cibola, Lincoln, Sierra, Torrance & Valencia.

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

  • Socorro County     (The home county of San Francisco)
    • The following are listed by their distance from San Francisco, with the one closest to San Francisco listed first.
    • La Joya
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
      • La Joya is located in Socorro County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Joya
    • Abeytas
      (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
      • Abeytas is located in Socorro County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Abeytas
    • Contreras
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Contreras is located in Socorro County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Contreras
    • Las Nutrias
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Las Nutrias is located in Socorro County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Las Nutrias
    • Veguita
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
    • San Acacia
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
    • Alamillo
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Alamillo is located in Socorro County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alamillo
    • Polvadera
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
    • Lemitar
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
    • Limitar
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
      • Limitar is located in Socorro County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Limitar
    • Socorro
      (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
    • Kelly ‑ Historic
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Kelly is located in Socorro County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kelly
    • Magdalena
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Torrance County
    • Abo ‑ Historic
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
      • Abo is located in Torrance County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Abo
  • Valencia County
    • The following are listed by their distance from San Francisco, with the one closest to San Francisco listed first.
    • Bosque
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
    • Casa Colorada
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
      • Casa Colorada is located in Valencia County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Casa Colorada
    • Jarales
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
    • Belen
      (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
      • Belen is located in Valencia County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Belen
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 7,496 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Belen <1>
    • Rio Communities
      (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
    • Tome
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • Valencia
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
      • Valencia is located in Valencia County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Valencia
    • Los Lunas
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)

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

Cemeteries Near San Francisco ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of San Francisco.

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.

Although we don't have the information ourselves, if you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our list of websites on our Genealogy Helper Page for San Francisco - one of the links might be able to help.

If not found below, our Cemetery List for San Francisco covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

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

  • La Joya Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
  • Abeytas Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
  • Veguita Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
  • Casa de Coloradas Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
  • Polvadera Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
  • Lemitar Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
  • Our Lady of Belen Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
  • Terrace Grove Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
  • Escondido Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
  • San Miguel Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
  • Tome Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tome Cemetery
    • The Tome Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Immaculate Conception Catholic Parish Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #38484 <2>
  • El Cemeterio de los Ricos
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for El Cemeterio de los Ricos
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the El Cemeterio de los Ricos is located outside and to the southwest of Tome.
    • The El Cemeterio de los Ricos has also been known as:
    • Old Tome Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2398150 <2>
  • Continue List   (10 more) ...

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.<3>

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

These communities are listed based on their distance from San Francisco, with the one closest to San Francisco listed first.

  • La Joya
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
    • La Joya is located in Socorro County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Joya
  • Sabinal
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
    • Sabinal is located in Socorro County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sabinal
  • Alamillo
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Alamillo is located in Socorro County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alamillo
  • San Acacia
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
  • Belen
    (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
    • Belen is located in Valencia County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Belen
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 7,496 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Belen <1>
  • Socorro
    (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
  • Tome
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
  • Rio Puerco
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
    • Rio Puerco is located in Valencia County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rio Puerco
  • Los Lunas
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)

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

Newspapers Published in San Francisco ...

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 44 newspapers that have been published in the area around San Francisco.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of San Francisco, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for San Francisco.

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 San Francisco:

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 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.
<3>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 San Francisco, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- San Francisco) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.