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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 Williamstown (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 Williamstown. 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 Williamstown ...

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: Williams Town.

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 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.

Williamstown is located in Dauphin 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 Dauphin County: Cumberland, Lancaster, Lebanon, Northumberland, Perry, Schuylkill & York.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Williamstown ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Williamstown.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Williamstown, with the one closest to Williamstown 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.<5>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Williamstown had a population of 2,324 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Williamstown had a population of 1,386 people.

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

  • Dayton
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Tower City
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
  • Sacramento
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Sacramento have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sacramento
    • Sacramento is located in Schuylkill County
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Sacramento <1>
  • Wiconisco
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Wiconisco have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wiconisco
    • Wiconisco is located in Dauphin County
  • Lykens
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
  • Orwin
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
  • Gold Mine
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Gold Mine have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gold Mine
    • Gold Mine is located in Lebanon County
  • Gratz
    (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
  • Valley View
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Klingerstown
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Klingerstown have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Klingerstown
    • Klingerstown is located in Schuylkill County
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Klingerstown <1>
  • Rough and Ready
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
  • Green Point
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Continue List   (17 more) ...
    • Murray
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Murray. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<2>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Murray
      • Murray is located in Lebanon County
      • Google driving directions:
      • From your current location to Murray
      • From Williamstown to Murray
    • Good Spring
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Good Spring have been provided by the GNIS.<3> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Good Spring
      • Good Spring is located in Schuylkill County
    • Hegins
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)

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

Newspapers Published in Williamstown ...

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 Williamstown.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Williamstown, there are papers which were published within 14 miles [22.5 km]<6>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Williamstown.

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 Williamstown:

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

The official website for Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: https://www.pa.gov/

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>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>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.
<4>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.
<5>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 Williamstown, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<6>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 drawn from Point A (ie- Williamstown) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Williamstown. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 40.5817, Longitude: -76.6191    









 

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In closing, please keep in mind that we can not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of the information on this website, so use with care. We encourage you to double-check the information that is critical to you.

If you've found an error or have additional information that you would like to share, please don't hesitate to write: Click here to contact us.

This page was last modified/updated: 29 Apr 2025