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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 Wilna (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 Wilna. 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 southeast 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 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 east 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.

Wilna is located in Grant 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 Grant County: Greenlee (AZ), Catron, Hidalgo, Luna & Sierra.

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

  • Grant County     (The home county of Wilna)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Wilna, with the one closest to Wilna listed first.
    • Separ
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Separ
      • Separ is located in Grant County
    • Old Hachita ‑ Historic
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Old Hachita
      • Old Hachita is located in Grant County
  • Hidalgo County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Wilna, with the one closest to Wilna listed first.
    • Windmill
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Windmill
      • Windmill is located in Hidalgo County
    • Lordsburg
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
    • Shakespeare ‑ Historic
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Shakespeare
      • Shakespeare is located in Hidalgo County
      • Former name for Shakespeare:
      • Ralston City
  • Luna County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Wilna, with the one closest to Wilna listed first.
    • Deming
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
    • Sunshine ‑ Historic
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sunshine
      • Sunshine is located in Luna County
    • Old Town
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Old Town have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Old Town
      • Old Town is located in Luna County

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

Newspapers Published in Wilna ...

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 14 newspapers that have been published in the area around Wilna.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Wilna, 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 Wilna.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we start with 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 Wilna:

Cemeteries Near Wilna ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Wilna.

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

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

  • Hachita Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Hachita Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Hachita Cemetery
  • Carroll Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Carroll Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Carroll Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #37983 <4>
  • Gold Hill Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Gold Hill Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Gold Hill Cemetery
  • Victorio Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Victorio Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Victorio Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #38501 <4>
  • Holy Cross Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
  • Desert Lawn Memorial Gardens
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)

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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that in 1895, Wilna had railroad service and no post office.

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

  • Separ
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Separ
    • Separ is located in Grant County
  • Hachita ‑ Historic
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Hachita have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hachita
    • Hachita is located in Grant County
  • Gold Hill ‑ Historic
    (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Gold Hill have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gold Hill
    • Gold Hill is located in Grant County
  • Whitewater
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Whitewater have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Whitewater
    • Whitewater is located in Grant County

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

Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for Wilna. If you can help, please contact us through our Feedback Page.

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

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 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>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 from Point A (ie- Wilna) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Wilna. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 32.2070, Longitude: -108.2348       In this case, the coordinates for Wilna 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>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 Wilna, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 07 Apr 2024