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 Williams 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 Williams 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 Williams 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 Williams Corner: Williams Cor. (or less commonly used: Williams Crn.)
While the name of this community is Williams Corner, be aware that it's the common practice of mapmakers to remove the apostrophe from possessive names<1>. So Williams Corner may originally have been William's Corner.
Sometimes the trailing 's' might be dropped altogether, in which case Williams Corner might be written as William 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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.
Below are the counties that are near Williams Corner. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Williams Corner:
Chester County (The home county of Williams Corner)
The following are listed by their distance from Williams Corner, with the one closest to Williams Corner listed first.
Pickering (Less than 2 miles to the west)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Pickering. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Mill Lane. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Pikeland. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Colebrookdale (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Colebrookdale. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Ironstone. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Monocacy. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Derstines. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
The following are listed by their distance from Williams Corner, with the one closest to Williams Corner listed first.
Saint Davids (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Saint Davids. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Broomall. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Beartown. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Terre Hill. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Weaverland. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Buyerstown. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
The following are listed by their distance from Williams Corner, with the one closest to Williams Corner listed first.
Hosensack (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Hosensack. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
The following are listed by their distance from Williams Corner, with the one closest to Williams Corner listed first.
Port Providence (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Port Providence. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Allen Lane. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Wayne Junction. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Westmont. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Thorofare. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
North Woodbury (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for North Woodbury. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Williams 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).
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Sacred Heart Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
Holy Trinity Cemetery (2 miles [3.2 km] to the north)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Holy Trinity Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
St.s Peter & Paul Cemetery (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northwest)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the St.s Peter & Paul Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
Valley Forge Baptist Cemetery (2 miles [3.2 km] to the east)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Valley Forge Baptist Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
Green Tree Cemetery (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Washington Memorial Chapel Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
Wetherills Cemetery (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
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>
The Rand McNally Atlas shows that in 1895, Williams Corner had a post office and no railroad service.
These communities are listed based on their distance from Williams Corner, with the one closest to Williams Corner listed first.
Pickering (Less than 2 miles to the west)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Pickering. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
Port Providence (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Port Providence. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
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 62 newspapers that have been published in the area around Williams Corner.
Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Williams Corner, there are papers which were published within 6 miles [9.7 km]<7>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Williams Corner.
Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...
When we do our genealogical research, we begin with 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 Williams Corner:
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>
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.
<3>
While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<4>
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.
<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 Williams 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 things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Williams Corner) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Williams Corner. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 40.1099, Longitude: -75.5121 In this case, the coordinates for Williams Corner have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).