RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of New York >> Otsego County >> Patent >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

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 Patent (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 Patent. 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.

Patent is located in Otsego County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Otsego County: Chenango, Delaware, Herkimer, Madison, Montgomery & Schoharie.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Patent ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Patent.

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

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

  • Robinson Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Robinson Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Robinson Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Hartwick Village Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the east)
  • Butterfield Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Butterfield Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Butterfield Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Butternut Valley Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Butternut Valley Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Butternut Valley Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Burlington Green Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
  • Old United Presbyterian Church Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Old United Presbyterian Church Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Old United Presbyterian Church Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Field Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Field Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Field Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Pierce Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Pierce Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Pierce Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Peck Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Peck Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Peck Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Welcome Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Welcome Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Welcome Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Lena Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Lena Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Lena Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Maple Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Maple Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Maple Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Continue List   (470 more) ...
    • Winsor Cemetery
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Winsor Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Winsor Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Snowden Hill Cemetery
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Snowden Hill Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Snowden Hill Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Quaker Cemetery
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Quaker Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Quaker Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<3> 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 Patent in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Patent.

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

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

Newspapers Published in Patent ...

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 46 newspapers that have been published in the area around Patent.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Patent, there are papers which were published within 18 miles [29 km]<6>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Patent.

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 either 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 Patent:

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>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>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.
<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 Patent, 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' (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- Patent) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Patent. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 42.6773, Longitude: -75.0998       In this case, the coordinates for Patent have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).