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 Great Bend (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 Great Bend. 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 Great Bend ...
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.
Another variation: Greatbend.
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 southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors and hospitals were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Heart Lake. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
North Jackson (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for North Jackson. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for West Warren. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Allis Hollow. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Tompkinsville. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Poyntelle. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for High Lake. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
Conklin Station (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Conklin Station. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Brookvale. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Gulf Summit. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
Union Valley (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Union Valley. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
East Guilford (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for East Guilford. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
The following are listed by their distance from Great Bend, with the one closest to Great Bend listed first.
Hambletville (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northeast)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Hambletville. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
Barbourville (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northeast)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Barbourville. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for South Owego. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
Ketchumville (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Ketchumville. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for East Nichols. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Great Bend.
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 Great Bend covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.
The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Great Bend, with the one closest to Great Bend listed first.
Riverside Cemetery (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northwest)
To give a relative sense of its location, the Riverside Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located less than 2 miles<4> to the west of Corbettsville (NY).
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the St. Johns Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
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.<7>
The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Great Bend had a population of 1,002 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Great Bend had a population of 663 people.
These communities are listed based on their distance from Great Bend, with the one closest to Great Bend listed first.
Hallstead (Less than 2 miles to the south)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Hallstead have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
Conklin Station (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Conklin Station. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Great Bend. See our List of 1890's Communities around Great Bend.
Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Great Bend ...
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 112 newspapers that have been published in the area around Great Bend.
We have organized these newspapers into two lists:
A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Great Bend. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Great Bend and those printed in the larger area surrounding Great Bend.
An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 18 miles [29 km]<4> of Great Bend.
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 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 Great Bend:
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.
<2>
While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>
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.
<4>
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- Great Bend) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Great Bend. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 41.9720, Longitude: -75.7446 In this case, the coordinates for Great Bend have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<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>
If we found a location and have questions about the accuracy of our information, we will simply say that the marker is 'in the vicinity'. We are not confident about the location and the position of our marker is only a rough guide. If we have too many doubts about the location, we will not include it in our database.
<7>
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 Great Bend, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.