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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 Franks Corner (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 Franks Corner. 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 Franks Corner ...

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.

  • A typical abbreviation for Franks Corner: Franks Cor. (or less commonly used: Franks Crn.)
  • While the name of this community is Franks Corner, be aware that it's the common practice of mapmakers to remove the apostrophe from possessive names<1>. So Franks Corner may originally have been Frank's Corner.

    Sometimes the trailing 's' might be dropped altogether, in which case Franks Corner might be written as Frank Corner.

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.

Franks Corner is located in Northampton County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Northampton County: Warren (NJ), Bucks, Carbon, Lehigh & Monroe.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Franks Corner ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Franks Corner.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Franks Corner, with the one closest to Franks Corner 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.<6>

While we didn't find Franks Corner in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Franks Corner.

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

  • Clyde
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Clyde have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Clyde
    • Clyde is located in Northampton County
  • Howertown
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the west)
  • Weaversville
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southwest)
  • Hanoverville
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Hanoverville have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hanoverville
    • Hanoverville is located in Northampton County
  • Steuben
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Steuben have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Steuben
    • Steuben is located in Northampton County
  • Seemsville
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Seemsville have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Seemsville
    • Seemsville is located in Northampton County
  • Shimer
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Shimer have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Shimer
    • Shimer is located in Northampton County
  • Cementon
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Cementon have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cementon
    • Cementon is located in Lehigh County
  • Wellington
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
  • Coplay
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Coplay have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Coplay
    • Coplay is located in Lehigh County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 3,217 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Coplay <3>
  • Hokendauqua
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Catasauqua
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Catasauqua have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Catasauqua
    • Catasauqua is located in Lehigh County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 6,606 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Catasauqua <3>
  • Continue List   (19 more) ...
    • Brodhead
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Brodhead have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Brodhead
      • Brodhead is located in Northampton County
    • Hecktown
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Hecktown have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hecktown
      • Hecktown is located in Northampton County
    • Klecknersville
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Klecknersville have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Klecknersville
      • Klecknersville is located in Northampton County

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

Newspapers Published in Franks Corner ...

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 18 newspapers that have been published in the area around Franks Corner.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Franks Corner, there are papers which were published within 7 miles [11.3 km]<7>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Franks Corner.

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 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 Franks Corner:

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

The official website for Northampton County: www.northamptoncounty.org/

The official website for Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: https://www.pa.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>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.
<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 Franks Corner, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<7>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- Franks Corner) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Franks Corner. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 40.7038, Longitude: -75.4181    









 

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This page was last modified/updated: 29 Apr 2025