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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 Tekapo (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 Tekapo. 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.

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

  • McKinley County     (The home county of Tekapo)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Tekapo, with the one closest to Tekapo listed first.
    • Zuni Pueblo
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Zuni Pueblo have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Zuni Pueblo
      • Zuni Pueblo is located in McKinley County
    • Black Rock
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Black Rock have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Black Rock
      • Black Rock is located in McKinley County
    • Vanderwagen
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Ramah
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Ramah have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ramah
      • Ramah is located in McKinley County
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Ramah <2>
    • Bread Springs
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bread Springs
      • Bread Springs is located in McKinley County
  • Cibola County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Tekapo, with the one closest to Tekapo listed first.
    • Fence Lake
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Pinehill
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Pinehill have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pinehill
      • Pinehill is located in Cibola County
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Pinehill <2>
  • Apache County (AZ)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Tekapo, with the one closest to Tekapo listed first.
    • Allentown
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Allentown
      • Allentown is located in Apache County (AZ)
    • Lupton
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Houck
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
    • Sanders
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Chambers
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)

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

Newspapers Published in Tekapo ...

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 1 newspapers that have been published in the area around Tekapo.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Tekapo, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Tekapo.

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 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 Tekapo:

Cemeteries Near Tekapo ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Tekapo.

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

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

  • Atarque Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Atarque Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> 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>
  • Mares Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
  • Houck Community Cemetery
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
  • Pinehaven Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Ramah Cemetery
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
  • Bowman Memorial Park
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for the Bowman Memorial Park. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<5>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Bowman Memorial Park
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #56978 <4>
  • Mormon Colony Cemetery
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Mormon Colony Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Mormon Colony Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #38247 <4>

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.<6>

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

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

  • Allentown
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Allentown
    • Allentown is located in Apache County (AZ)
  • Sanders
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)

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

Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for Tekapo. 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>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.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<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 drawn from Point A (ie- Tekapo) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Tekapo. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 35.0220, Longitude: -108.9429       In this case, the coordinates for Tekapo have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<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>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.
<6>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 Tekapo, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 07 Apr 2024