RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Oregon >> Lane County >> Elrus >> 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 Elrus (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 Elrus. 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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Elrus is located in Lane County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Lane County: Benton, Deschutes, Douglas, Klamath, Lincoln & Linn.

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

  • Lane County     (The home county of Elrus)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Elrus, with the one closest to Elrus listed first.
    • Long Tom
      (Less than 2 miles to the east)
      • Long Tom is located in Lane County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Long Tom
    • Noti
      (Less than 2 miles to the west)
    • Elmira
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
    • Veneta
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
    • Fern Ridge Shores
      (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
      • Fern Ridge Shores is located in Lane County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fern Ridge Shores
    • Crow
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
      • Crow is located in Lane County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Crow
    • Walton
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
    • Alvadore
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Franklin
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
      • Franklin is located in Lane County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Franklin
    • Cheshire
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Blachly
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
    • River Road
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
      • River Road is located in Lane County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for River Road
    • Santa Clara
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
      • Santa Clara is located in Lane County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Santa Clara
  • Benton County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Elrus, with the one closest to Elrus listed first.
    • Monroe
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
    • Bellfountain Junction
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
    • Alsea
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
    • Jennyopolis ‑ Historic
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
      • Jennyopolis is located in Benton County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jennyopolis
  • Douglas County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Elrus, with the one closest to Elrus listed first.
    • Curtin
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Drain
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
      • Drain is located in Douglas County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Drain
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,201 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Drain <1>
    • Elkton
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
  • Linn County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Elrus, with the one closest to Elrus listed first.
    • Harrisburg
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Halsey
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)

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

Cemeteries Near Elrus ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Elrus.

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 Elrus - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Sailor Pioneer - Noti Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • Stephens S S Heirs Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Mounse Burial
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Walton Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
  • Gates Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Liles Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Central School Association Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Inman Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Goldson Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
  • Jenkins Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Richardson Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Chickahominy Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
  • Continue List   (109 more) ...
    • McCulloch Cemetery
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Oak Hill Cemetery
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oak Hill Cemetery
      • To give a relative sense of its location, the Oak Hill Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the west of Eugene.
      • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #39222 <2>
    • Franklin Grange Cemetery
      (9 miles [14.5 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 Elrus in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Elrus.

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

  • Long Tom
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
    • Long Tom is located in Lane County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Long Tom
  • Elmira
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
  • Crow
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Crow is located in Lane County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Crow
  • Hadleyville
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Hadleyville is located in Lane County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hadleyville
  • Walton
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
  • Franklin
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Franklin is located in Lane County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Franklin
  • Alma
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
    • Alma is located in Lane County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alma
  • Irving
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
    • Irving is located in Lane County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Irving
  • Junction City
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Alpha
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Alpha is located in Lane County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alpha
  • Eugene
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
  • Deadwood
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
  • Continue List   (16 more) ...
    • Lorane
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Coburg
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
    • Harrisburg
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northeast)

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

Newspapers Published in Elrus ...

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 109 newspapers that have been published in the area around Elrus.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Elrus, there are papers which were published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Elrus.

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 Elrus:

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 Elrus, 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 drawn from Point A (ie- Elrus) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.