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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

So far, we found very little information about White Rock. The little that we've found leads us believe that the community is historic.<1>

We've added White Rock to our Gazetteer with the hope that we can develop more information. If you can help us with White Rock, please Contact Us.

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 White Rock (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 White Rock. 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 White Rock ...

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.

Another variation: Whiterock.

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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Although our information shows that the community of White Rock is historic, it would have been located within present day San Juan 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 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 White Rock. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to White Rock:

  • San Juan County     (The home county of White Rock)
    • The following are listed by their distance from White Rock, with the one closest to White Rock listed first.
    • Lake Valley
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lake Valley
      • Lake Valley is located in San Juan County
    • Naschitti
      (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Naschitti have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Naschitti
      • Naschitti is located in San Juan County
    • Sheep Springs
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
    • Newcomb
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Newcomb have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Newcomb
      • Newcomb is located in San Juan County
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Newcomb <3>
  • McKinley County
    • The following are listed by their distance from White Rock, with the one closest to White Rock listed first.
    • Crownpoint
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
    • Brimhall Nizhoni
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Brimhall Nizhoni have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Brimhall Nizhoni
      • Brimhall Nizhoni is located in McKinley County

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

Newspapers Published in White Rock ...

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 White Rock.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of White Rock, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for White Rock.

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 helpful 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 White Rock:

Cemeteries Near White Rock ...

We're sorry, but we don't know of any cemeteries in the area around White Rock.

This is a new section of our Gazetteer and we're still collecting data about cemeteries and their location. If you know of a cemetery that should be included, please let us know.

We are looking for information such as the name of the cemetery, its GPS location, whether the cemetery is still in use or if it is historic (ie- defunct, abandoned,  etc.). If it applies, we would also like to learn of any past or alternate names that the cemetery has been known by.

If you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our collection of Genealogy Websites.

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

The official website for San Juan County: www.co.san-juan.nm.us/

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

Footnotes ...

<1>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 White Rock, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<2>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.
<3>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- White Rock) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in White Rock. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 36.0876, Longitude: -108.2706       In this case, the coordinates for White Rock have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 07 Apr 2024