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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 Grants Pass (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 Grants Pass. 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 Grants Pass ...

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.

While the name of this city is Grants Pass, be aware that it's the common practice of mapmakers to remove the apostrophe from possessive names<1>. So Grants Pass may originally have been Grant's Pass.

Sometimes the trailing 's' might be dropped altogether, in which case Grants Pass might be written as Grant Pass.

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 hospitals and doctors 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.

Grants Pass is located in Josephine County and is the County Seat.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Josephine County: Del Norte (CA), Siskiyou (CA), Curry, Douglas & Jackson.

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

  • Josephine County     (The home county of Grants Pass)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Grants Pass, with the one closest to Grants Pass listed first.
    • Fruitdale
      (Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Fruitdale have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fruitdale
      • Fruitdale is located in Josephine County
    • Redwood
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Redwood have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Redwood
      • Redwood is located in Josephine County
    • New Hope
      (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for New Hope
      • New Hope is located in Josephine County
    • Murphy
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
    • Merlin
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Wilderville
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Three Pines
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Three Pines
      • Three Pines is located in Josephine County
    • Hugo
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hugo
      • Hugo is located in Josephine County
    • Placer
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Placer
      • Placer is located in Josephine County
    • Greenback ‑ Historic
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Greenback
      • Greenback is located in Josephine County
    • Sunny Valley
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
    • Leland
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Leland
      • Leland is located in Josephine County
    • Williams
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
  • Douglas County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Grants Pass, with the one closest to Grants Pass listed first.
    • Glendale
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Azalea
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
  • Jackson County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Grants Pass, with the one closest to Grants Pass listed first.
    • Rogue River
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Rogue River have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rogue River
      • Rogue River is located in Jackson County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,340 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Rogue River <3>
    • Wimer
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wimer
      • Wimer is located in Jackson County
    • Provolt
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Provolt
      • Provolt is located in Jackson County
    • Gold Hill
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
    • Applegate
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Sams Valley
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Sams Valley have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sams Valley
      • Sams Valley is located in Jackson County
    • Jacksonville
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Ruch
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Central Point
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Central Point have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Central Point
      • Central Point is located in Jackson County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 19,117 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Central Point <3>
    • White City
      (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for White City have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for White City
      • White City is located in Jackson County
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for White City <3>
    • Medford
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
    • Buncom
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Buncom
      • Buncom is located in Jackson County
    • Sterlingville ‑ Historic
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Sterlingville. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<4>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sterlingville
      • Sterlingville is located in Jackson County

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Grants Pass ...

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 54 newspapers that have been published in the area around Grants Pass.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Grants Pass. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Grants Pass and those printed in the larger area surrounding Grants Pass.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 26 miles [41.8 km]<5> of Grants Pass.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we like to start with 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 Grants Pass:

Cemeteries Near Grants Pass ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Grants Pass.

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

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

  • Tokay Heights Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Tokay Heights Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Tokay Heights Cemetery
  • Hillcrest Memorial Park
    (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Hillcrest Memorial Park have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Hillcrest Memorial Park
  • Granite Hill Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Granite Hill Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Granite Hill Cemetery
  • Hawthorne Memorial Gardens Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Hawthorne Memorial Gardens Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Hawthorne Memorial Gardens Cemetery
  • Sloan Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Sloan Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Sloan Cemetery
  • Pleasant Valley Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Pleasant Valley Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Pleasant Valley Cemetery
  • Wilderville Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Wilderville Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Wilderville Cemetery
  • Woodville Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Woodville Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Woodville Cemetery
  • Ferrydale Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Ferrydale Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Ferrydale Cemetery
  • Foots Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Foots Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Foots Cemetery
  • Missouri Flat Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Missouri Flat Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Missouri Flat Cemetery
  • Hays Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Hays Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Hays Cemetery
  • Continue List   (40 more) ...
    • Hays - Gall Cemetery
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Hays - Gall Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Hays - Gall Cemetery
    • Rock Point Cemetery
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Rock Point Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Rock Point Cemetery
    • Gold Hill IOOF Cemetery
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Gold Hill IOOF Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Gold Hill IOOF Cemetery

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.<6>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Grants Pass had a population of 1,432 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Grants Pass had a population of 38,416 people.

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

  • Murphy
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
  • Merlin
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Wilderville
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Rock Point ‑ Historic
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Rock Point have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rock Point
    • Rock Point is located in Jackson County
  • Wimer
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wimer
    • Wimer is located in Jackson County
  • Draper ‑ Historic
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Draper have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Draper
    • Draper is located in Jackson County
  • Gold Hill
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
  • Applegate
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Leland
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Leland
    • Leland is located in Josephine County
  • Williams
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
  • Wolf Creek
    (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
  • Tolo
    (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Tolo have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tolo
    • Tolo is located in Jackson County
  • Continue List   (15 more) ...
    • Sams Valley
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Sams Valley have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sams Valley
      • Sams Valley is located in Jackson County
    • Jacksonville
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Glendale
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)

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

The official website for Grants Pass: www.ci.grants-pass.or.us/

The official website for Josephine County: www.co.josephine.or.us/

The official website for State of Oregon: https://www.oregon.gov/

Footnotes ...

<1>It's generally believed that possessive apostrophes are removed to prevent confusion on maps where the apostrophe may be confused with a cartographic symbol. While this is generally true, it's not uncommon to find possessive apostrophes in administrative names (such as towns or counties).
<2>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.
<3>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<4>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.
<5>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 from Point A (ie- Grants Pass) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Grants Pass. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 42.4396, Longitude: -123.3268    
<6>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 Grants Pass, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 07 Apr 2024