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 City Island (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 City Island. 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 City Island ...
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.
For example, a typical abbreviation for City Island: City Is. (in Canada, 'Isld.' is the more common abbreviation.)
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 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.
Williams Bridge (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Williams Bridge. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Williamsburg (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Williamsburg. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Douglaston. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Great Kills. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Annadale. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Bardonia. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Riverbank. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Banksville. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
The following are listed by their distance from City Island, with the one closest to City Island listed first.
Fort Lee (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Fort Lee. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for West Englewood. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Brookdale. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Montclair Heights (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Montclair Heights. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
The following are listed by their distance from City Island, with the one closest to City Island listed first.
Hanover Neck (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Hanover Neck. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
The Village at Little Falls (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for The Village at Little Falls have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
Borough of Woodland Park is located in Passaic County (NJ)
Population from the 2020 Census: 12,655 people
Little Falls (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Little Falls. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of City Island.
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 City Island covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.
The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from City Island, with the one closest to City Island listed first.
Pelham Cemetery (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Blessed Sacrament Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
St. Peter's Graveyard (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the St. Peter's Graveyard have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
All Saints Cemetery (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the St. Pauls Protestant Episcopal Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
Holy Sepulchre Cemetery (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Trinity Protestant Episcopal Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
Beechwoods Cemetery (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Old West Farms Soldiers Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
Nassau Knolls Cemetery (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Monfort Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
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 City Island in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of City Island.
These communities are listed based on their distance from City Island, with the one closest to City Island listed first.
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Douglaston. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around City Island. See our List of 1890's Communities around City Island.
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 73 newspapers that have been published in the area around City Island.
Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of City Island, there are papers which were published within 7 miles [11.3 km]<6>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for City Island.
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 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 City Island:
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>
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.
<3>
While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<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 City Island, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<6>
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- City Island) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in City Island. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 40.8472, Longitude: -73.7865