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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 Serafina (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 Serafina. 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 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.

Serafina is located in San Miguel 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 San Miguel County: Guadalupe, Harding, Mora, Quay, Santa Fe & Torrance.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Serafina ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Serafina.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Serafina, with the one closest to Serafina 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 Serafina in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Serafina.

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

  • Bernal
    (Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Bernal have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bernal
    • Bernal is located in San Miguel County
  • Blanchard
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Blanchard have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Blanchard
    • Blanchard is located in San Miguel County
  • Tecolote
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Tecolote. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<1>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tecolote
    • Tecolote is located in San Miguel County
    • Google driving directions:
    • From your current location to Tecolote
    • From Serafina to Tecolote
  • San Miguel
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for San Miguel. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<1>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for San Miguel
    • San Miguel is located in San Miguel County
    • Google driving directions:
    • From your current location to San Miguel
    • From Serafina to San Miguel
  • Villanueva
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
  • Sands
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Sands have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sands
    • Sands is located in San Miguel County
  • Romero
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Romero. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<1>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Romero
    • Romero is located in San Miguel County
    • Google driving directions:
    • From your current location to Romero
    • From Serafina to Romero
  • Las Vegas
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
  • East Las Vegas ‑ Historic
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for East Las Vegas have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for East Las Vegas
    • East Las Vegas is located in San Miguel County
  • Hot Springs
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
  • Rowe
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
  • Pecos
    (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Pecos have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pecos
    • Pecos is located in San Miguel County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,313 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Pecos <2>
  • Continue List   (6 more) ...
    • Onava
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Onava have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Onava
      • Onava is located in San Miguel County
    • Los Alamos
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Los Alamos. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<1>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Los Alamos
      • Los Alamos is located in San Miguel County
      • Google driving directions:
      • From your current location to Los Alamos
      • From Serafina to Los Alamos
    • San Ignacio
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for San Ignacio have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for San Ignacio
      • San Ignacio is located in San Miguel County

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

Newspapers Published in Serafina ...

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 74 newspapers that have been published in the area around Serafina.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Serafina, there are papers which were published within 23 miles [37 km]<6>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Serafina.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we begin with 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 Serafina:

Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for Serafina. 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>An 'estimated' location is one where we have been given GPS coordinates, but are unable to verify the accuracy of those coordinates. That said, we have some confidence that we have placed the marker near the actual location. A typical reason for being unable to verify a location is that it might be on private property or maybe historic and gone without an obvious trace.
<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 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.
<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 Serafina, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<6>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Serafina) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Serafina. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 35.3969, Longitude: -105.3246    









 

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This page was last modified/updated: 28 Apr 2025