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 Spencerville (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 Spencerville. 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 and hospitals 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.
Spencerville is located in San Juan 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 San Juan County: Apache (AZ), Archuleta (CO), La Plata (CO), Montezuma (CO), McKinley, Rio Arriba, Sandoval & San Juan (UT).
Below are the counties that are near Spencerville. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Spencerville:
- San Juan County (The home county of Spencerville)
- The following are listed by their distance from Spencerville, with the one closest to Spencerville listed first.
- Flora Vista
(2 miles [3.2 km] to the southwest)
- Aztec
(3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
- Bloomfield
(7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
- La Plata
(10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
- Farmington
(10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
- Blanco
(14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
- Napi HQ
(14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
- Napi HQ is located in San Juan County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Napi HQ
- Upper Fruitland
(15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
- Upper Fruitland is located in San Juan County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Upper Fruitland
- Turley
(16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
- Turley is located in San Juan County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Turley
- Kirtland
(17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
- Ojo Amarillo
(19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
- Ojo Amarillo is located in San Juan County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ojo Amarillo
- Fruitland
(19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
- Huerfano
(20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
- Huerfano is located in San Juan County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Huerfano
- Rio Arriba County
- Navajo City
(25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
- Navajo City is located in Rio Arriba County
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Navajo City
- La Plata County (CO)
- The following are listed by their distance from Spencerville, with the one closest to Spencerville listed first.
- Bondad
(18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
- Bondad is located in La Plata County (CO)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bondad
- Marvel
(20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
- Fort Lewis ‑ Historic
(28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
- Fort Lewis is located in La Plata County (CO)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fort Lewis
- La Boca
(28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
- La Boca is located in La Plata County (CO)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Boca
- Carbon Junction
(30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
- Carbon Junction is located in La Plata County (CO)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Carbon Junction
For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Spencerville, see our County-by-County Page for Spencerville.
Cemeteries Near Spencerville ...
Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Spencerville.
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 Spencerville - one of the links might be able to help.
If not found below, our Cemetery List for Spencerville covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.
The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Spencerville, with the one closest to Spencerville listed first.
- Flora Vista Cemetery
(Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
- Memory Gardens of Farmington
(4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Memory Gardens of Farmington
- To give a relative sense of its location, the Memory Gardens of Farmington is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the northeast of Farmington.
- The Memory Gardens of Farmington has also been known as:
- Farmington Memory Gardens
- Memory Gardens Cemetery
- Memory Gardens
- Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #1973605 <2>
- Aztec Cemetery
(4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
- Dustin Masonic Memorial Park
(8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
- Greenlawn Cemetery
(9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
- La Plata Cemetery
(9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
- Old Cedar Hill Cemetery
(10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
- Greenhorn Cemetery
(10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
- Navajo Methodist Mission Cemetery
(11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
- Cedar Hill Cemetery
(11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
- Hammond Cemetery
(12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
- Blanco - Turley Cemetery
(14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
- Continue List (9 more) ...
- Kirtland Cemetery
(18 miles [29 km] to the west)
- Elco Cemetery
(19 miles [30.6 km] to the northeast)
- Marvel Cemetery
(21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
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.<4>
While we didn't find Spencerville in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Spencerville.
These communities are listed based on their distance from Spencerville, with the one closest to Spencerville listed first.
- Flora Vista
(2 miles [3.2 km] to the southwest)
- Aztec
(3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
- Bloomfield
(7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
- Farmington
(10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
- La Plata
(10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
- Fruitland
(19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
- La Boca
(28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
- La Boca is located in La Plata County (CO)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Boca
- Fort Lewis ‑ Historic
(28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
- Fort Lewis is located in La Plata County (CO)
- Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fort Lewis
We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Spencerville. See our List of 1890's Communities around Spencerville.
Newspapers Published in Spencerville ...
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 25 newspapers that have been published in the area around Spencerville.
Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Spencerville, there are papers which were published within 28 miles [45.1 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Spencerville.
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 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 Spencerville:
- Websites specific to New Mexico
- Pages specific to San Juan County
- Genealogy information for nearby counties
- Rio Arriba County
- La Plata County
- Cemetery Information and Directories for New Mexico
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> | Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Spencerville) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'. |
| <4> | 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 Spencerville, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy. |