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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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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 West Chester (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 West Chester. 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 West Chester ...

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 West Chester: W. Chester

You might be interested in other communities that are also named West Chester. More information can be found on our Tidbits & Trivia Page for West Chester.

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.

West Chester is located in Chester County and is the County Seat.

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 Chester County: New Castle (DE), Cecil (MD), Berks, Delaware, Lancaster & Montgomery.

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

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

Cemeteries Near West Chester ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of West Chester.

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 West Chester - one of the links might be able to help.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from West Chester, with the one closest to West Chester 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.<3>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that West Chester had a population of 8,028 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, West Chester had a population of 20,048 people.

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

  • Fern Hill
    (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
  • Green Hill
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the north)
    • Green Hill is located in Chester County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Green Hill
  • Wawaset
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
  • Lenape
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Lenape is located in Chester County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lenape
  • Seal
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
  • Thornbury
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Thornbury is located in Chester County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Thornbury
  • Westtown
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Westtown is located in Chester County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Westtown
  • Milltown
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
    • Milltown is located in Chester County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Milltown
  • Kirkland
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
    • Kirkland is located in Chester County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kirkland
  • Bradford Hills
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Bradford Hills is located in Chester County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bradford Hills
  • Exton
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
  • Pocopson
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
    • Pocopson is located in Chester County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pocopson
  • Continue List   (19 more) ...
    • Dilworthtown
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Dilworthtown is located in Chester County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dilworthtown
    • Cheyney
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Cheyney is located in Chester County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cheyney
    • Whitford
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Whitford is located in Chester County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Whitford

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of West Chester ...

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 70 newspapers that have been published in the area around West Chester.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of West Chester. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of West Chester and those printed in the larger area surrounding West Chester.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 6 miles [9.7 km]<4> of West Chester.

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 West Chester:

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>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.
<3>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 West Chester, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<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 drawn from Point A (ie- West Chester) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.