RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> Commonwealth of Pennsylvania >> Clearfield County >> Belsena >> 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 Belsena (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 Belsena. 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 Belsena ...

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.

Belsena has also been known as: Belsena Mills.

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.

Belsena is located in Clearfield County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Clearfield County: Cameron, Centre, Clinton, Elk, Indiana & Jefferson.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Belsena ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Belsena.

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

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

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

  • Alexander Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
  • Calvary Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
  • Beulah Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
  • St. Marys Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
  • St. Barbara Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
  • Henderson Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
  • Baughman Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Crossroads Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
  • Mt. Zion Memorial Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
  • IOOF Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
  • Sanborn Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Snyder Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
  • Continue List   (221 more) ...
    • Weld Cemetery
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
    • Williams Cemetery
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Thompson Cemetery
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)

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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Belsena had a population of 143 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service.

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

  • Madera
    (Less than 2 miles to the south)
  • Banian Junction
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the south)
    • Banian Junction is located in Clearfield County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Banian Junction
  • Smoke Run
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
    • Smoke Run is located in Clearfield County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Smoke Run
  • Houtzdale
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
  • Kendrick
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Kendrick is located in Clearfield County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kendrick
  • Glen Hope
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Hegarty Crossroads
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
  • Ramey
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Brisbin
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
  • Jeffries
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Jeffries is located in Clearfield County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jeffries
  • Morann
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Morann is located in Clearfield County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Morann
  • Sterling
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
    • Sterling is located in Clearfield County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sterling
  • Continue List   (19 more) ...
    • Goss Run Junction
      (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
      • Goss Run Junction is located in Clearfield County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Goss Run Junction
    • Olanta
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
    • New Millport
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
      • New Millport is located in Clearfield County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for New Millport

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

Newspapers Published in Belsena ...

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 39 newspapers that have been published in the area around Belsena.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Belsena, there are papers which were published within 14 miles [22.5 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Belsena.

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 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 Belsena:

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>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 Belsena, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Belsena) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.