Our Genealogy HelperIntroduction ...We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:
By learning about Smith Ferry (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 Smith Ferry. 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 Smith Ferry ...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 occur. For example, a typical abbreviation for Smith Ferry: Smith Fry. (or less commonly used: Smith Frry.) You might be interested in other communities that are also named Smith Ferry. More information can be found on our Tidbits & Trivia Page for Smith Ferry. 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 and doctors 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. Smith Ferry is located in Douglas 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 Douglas County: Coos, Curry, Jackson, Josephine, Klamath & Lane. Below are the counties that are near Smith Ferry. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Smith Ferry:
For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Smith Ferry, see our County-by-County Page for Smith Ferry. Cemeteries Near Smith Ferry ...Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Smith Ferry. 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 Smith Ferry - one of the links might be able to help. If not found below, our Cemetery List for Smith Ferry covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order. The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Smith Ferry, with the one closest to Smith Ferry 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.<2> While we didn't find Smith Ferry in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Smith Ferry. These communities are listed based on their distance from Smith Ferry, with the one closest to Smith Ferry listed first.
We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Smith Ferry. See our List of 1890's Communities around Smith Ferry. Newspapers Published in Smith Ferry ...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 40 newspapers that have been published in the area around Smith Ferry. Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Smith Ferry, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Smith Ferry. Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...When we do our genealogical research, we start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These helpful 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 Smith Ferry:
Footnotes ...
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