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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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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 Ocean Bay Park (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 Ocean Bay Park. 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 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.

Ocean Bay Park is located in Suffolk County.

To see how the shape of New York's counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

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

  • Suffolk County     (The home county of Ocean Bay Park)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Ocean Bay Park, with the one closest to Ocean Bay Park listed first.
    • Fire Island
      (Less than 2 miles to the west)
    • Ocean Beach
      (Less than 2 miles to the west)
    • Saltaire
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the west)
    • Great River
      (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
    • West Sayville
      (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
      • West Sayville is located in Suffolk County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for West Sayville
    • Water Island
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
      • Water Island is located in Suffolk County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Water Island
    • North Great River
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
      • North Great River is located in Suffolk County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North Great River
    • Oakdale
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
    • Sayville
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
    • East Islip
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
      • East Islip is located in Suffolk County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for East Islip
    • Islip
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Bayport
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
    • Bay Shore
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Nassau County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Ocean Bay Park, with the one closest to Ocean Bay Park listed first.
    • East Massapequa
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
      • East Massapequa is located in Nassau County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for East Massapequa
    • Massapequa Park
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
    • South Farmingdale
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
      • South Farmingdale is located in Nassau County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for South Farmingdale
    • Biltmore Shores
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
      • Biltmore Shores is located in Nassau County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Biltmore Shores
    • Farmingdale
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
    • Harbor Green
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
      • Harbor Green is located in Nassau County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Harbor Green
    • Massapequa
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
    • North Massapequa
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
      • North Massapequa is located in Nassau County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North Massapequa
    • Old Bethpage
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northwest)
    • Plainedge
      (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
      • Plainedge is located in Nassau County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Plainedge
    • Seaford
      (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
    • Bethpage
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
    • North Wantagh
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
      • North Wantagh is located in Nassau County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North Wantagh

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

Cemeteries Near Ocean Bay Park ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Ocean Bay Park.

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 Ocean Bay Park - one of the links might be able to help.

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Ocean Bay Park covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

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

  • St. Ann's Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Union Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
  • St. Lawrence Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
  • St. Patricks Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Oakwood Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Old Central Islip Psychiatric Center Patient Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
  • Blue Point Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Bohemia Union Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
  • St. John Nepomucene RC Church Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
  • Calvary Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
  • First Methodist Church Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
  • Cedar Grove Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Continue List   (163 more) ...
    • Rice Cemetery
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Lakeview Cemetery
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
    • St. de Sales Cemetery
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)

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.<3>

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

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

  • Fire Island
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Great River
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
  • West Sayville
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
    • West Sayville is located in Suffolk County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for West Sayville
  • Sayville
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Islip
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Bayport
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Bay Shore
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Blue Point
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Bohemia
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
  • Central Islip
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
  • Brentwood
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Patchogue
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Continue List   (15 more) ...
    • Ronkonkoma
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
    • Babylon
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
    • East Patchogue
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
      • East Patchogue is located in Suffolk County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for East Patchogue

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

Newspapers Published in Ocean Bay Park ...

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 193 newspapers that have been published in the area around Ocean Bay Park.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Ocean Bay Park, there are papers which were published within 20 miles [32.2 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Ocean Bay Park.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first turn to 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 Ocean Bay Park:

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>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 Ocean Bay Park, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>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- Ocean Bay Park) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.