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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

Although we found mention of Avon during our research, we have little information about it.<1> Given the context of how Avon was mentioned, we believe that it was a community rather than a locale or some type of landmark. We have done a cursory search and if it was a community, we haven't been able to find any evidence that it still exists..

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 Avon (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 Avon. 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.

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 doctors and 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.

Avon is located in Iron County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Iron County: Lincoln (NV), Beaver, Garfield, Kane & Washington.

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

  • Iron County     (The home county of Avon)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Avon, with the one closest to Avon listed first.
    • Lund ‑ Historic
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lund
      • Lund is located in Iron County
    • Zane ‑ Historic
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Zane have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Zane
      • Zane is located in Iron County
      • Zane has also been known as:
      • Sahara
    • Beryl
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Beryl
      • Beryl is located in Iron County
    • Enoch
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
    • Fort Johnson ‑ Historic
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Fort Johnson have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fort Johnson
      • Fort Johnson is located in Iron County
    • Johnson's Fort ‑ Historic
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Johnson's Fort. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<4>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Johnson's Fort
      • Johnson's Fort is located in Iron County
      • Johnson's Fort has also been known as:
      • Johnson Springs
    • Newcastle
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Old Irontown
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Old Irontown
      • Old Irontown is located in Iron County
      • Old Irontown has also been known as:
      • Iron City
      • Irontown
    • Cedar City
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cedar City
      • Cedar City is located in Iron County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 36,090 people
      • Former names for Cedar City:
      • Coal Creek
      • Little Muddy
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Cedar City <3>
    • Hamiltons Fort
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hamiltons Fort
      • Hamiltons Fort is located in Iron County
      • Former names for Hamiltons Fort:
      • Fort Hamblin
      • Fort Sidon
      • Fort Walker
      • Hambleton
      • Hamblin
      • Shirts Creek
      • Sidon
      • Hamiltons Fort has also been known as:
      • Hamilton Fort
      • Hamilton
    • Beryl Junction
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Beryl Junction
      • Beryl Junction is located in Iron County
    • Yale Crossing ‑ Historic
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Yale Crossing
      • Yale Crossing is located in Iron County
    • Little Pinto ‑ Historic
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Little Pinto. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<4>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Little Pinto
      • Little Pinto is located in Iron County
      • Little Pinto has also been known as:
      • Page Ranch
  • Beaver County
    • Thermo ‑ Historic
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Thermo have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Thermo
      • Thermo is located in Beaver County
  • Washington County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Avon, with the one closest to Avon listed first.
    • Pinto
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pinto
      • Pinto is located in Washington County
    • Holt ‑ Historic
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Holt
      • Holt is located in Washington County
    • New Harmony
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
    • Hamblin ‑ Historic
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Hamblin. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<4>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hamblin
      • Hamblin is located in Washington County
    • Fort Harmony ‑ Historic
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fort Harmony
      • Fort Harmony is located in Washington County
    • Enterprise
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)

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

Newspapers Published in Avon ...

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 6 newspapers that have been published in the area around Avon.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Avon, there are papers which were published within 28 miles [45.1 km]<5>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Avon.

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 professional and volunteer 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 Avon:

Cemeteries Near Avon ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Avon.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Avon, with the one closest to Avon 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.<7>

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

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

  • Cedar City
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cedar City
    • Cedar City is located in Iron County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 36,090 people
    • Former names for Cedar City:
    • Coal Creek
    • Little Muddy
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Cedar City <3>
  • Pinto
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pinto
    • Pinto is located in Washington County
  • Kanarraville
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Kanarraville have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kanarraville
    • Kanarraville is located in Iron County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 410 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Kanarraville <3>
  • Hamblin ‑ Historic
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Hamblin. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<4>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hamblin
    • Hamblin is located in Washington County
  • New Harmony
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
  • Parowan
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)

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

The official website for Iron County: www.ironnet.org/

The official website for State of Utah: https://www.utah.gov/

Footnotes ...

<1>If we encounter the name of what might be a community, our methodology is to add that name to our Gazetteer. For example, we might find a sentence like "He went south past Avon and then turned east". While Avon could be some kind of landmark, we think that it's more likely to be a community. We've added Avon as a placeholder with the hope that we'll be able to add more information in the future.

Just as a reminder: Our definition of a community is rather broad and includes those places (or areas) where several families lived and had a name which identified that place. For example, you might hear somebody say that they are going over to Mile's to see Pete ... Mile's is just a gas station and a couple of homes at the crossroads. While it might not be on the map, everybody in the area knows it by that name.

Places of interest include buildings at a crossroad, several families clustered in a hollow or maybe the location of a way station. It also includes places like mines, lumber camps, ferry crossings, etc. The community might still exist, is now gone or only existed for just a short period of time.

Also keep in mind that Avon could have been on the original document by mistake, misspelled, the original/alternate name of a community that we've listed elsewhere or was placed in the wrong county. Sometimes a post office or train station would have a different name than the community where it's located, so two names might be referring to the same community - we're working to straighten it all out.

Just in case there has been confusion between counties, we found that there are two Utah communities named Avon: This one is located in Iron County and the other is located in Cache County. For more information, see our Tidbits & Trivia Page for Avon.
<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>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Avon) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Avon. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 37.8942, Longitude: -113.3501    
<6>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.
<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 Avon, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 07 Apr 2024