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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 Woodsville (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 Woodsville. 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 Woodsville ...

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: Woodville.

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 southwest 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 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 west 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.

Woodsville is located in Livingston 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 Livingston County: Allegany, Genesee, Monroe, Ontario, Steuben & Wyoming.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Woodsville ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Woodsville.

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

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

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 Woodsville in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Woodsville.

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

  • Dansville
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Dansville have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dansville
    • Dansville is located in Livingston County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 4,334 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Dansville <2>
  • Byersville
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Byersville have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Byersville
    • Byersville is located in Livingston County
  • Ossian
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Ossian have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ossian
    • Ossian is located in Livingston County
  • West Sparta
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Rogersville
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Rogersville have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rogersville
    • Rogersville is located in Steuben County
  • Perkinsville
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Perkinsville have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Perkinsville
    • Perkinsville is located in Steuben County
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Perkinsville <2>
  • Groveland
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
  • Wayland
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Wayland have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wayland
    • Wayland is located in Steuben County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,755 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Wayland <2>
  • Tuscarora
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Tuscarora have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tuscarora
    • Tuscarora is located in Livingston County
  • Canaseraga
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
  • Springwater
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Websters Crossing
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Continue List   (18 more) ...
    • Sonyea
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Sonyea have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sonyea
      • Sonyea is located in Livingston County
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Sonyea <2>
    • Rosses
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Rosses have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rosses
      • Rosses is located in Livingston County
    • Swain
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)

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

Newspapers Published in Woodsville ...

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 149 newspapers that have been published in the area around Woodsville.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Woodsville, there are papers which were published within 19 miles [30.6 km]<6>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Woodsville.

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 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 Woodsville:

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

The official website for Livingston County: www.co.livingston.state.ny.us/

The official website for State of New York: https://www.ny.gov/

Footnotes ...

<1>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>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>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.
<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 Woodsville, 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 obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Woodsville) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Woodsville. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 42.5758, Longitude: -77.7318    









 

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In closing, please keep in mind that we can not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of the information on this website, so use with care. We encourage you to double-check the information that is critical to you.

If you've found an error or have additional information that you would like to share, please don't hesitate to write: Click here to contact us.

This page was last modified/updated: 29 Apr 2025