RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Utah >> San Juan County >> La Sal Junction >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

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 La Sal Junction (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 La Sal Junction. 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 La Sal Junction ...

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.

For example, a typical abbreviation for La Sal Junction: La Sal Jct. (or less commonly used: La Sal Jctn.)

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 and doctors 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.

La Sal Junction is located in San Juan County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of San Juan County: Apache (AZ), Coconino (AZ), Navajo (AZ), Dolores (CO), Montezuma (CO), Montrose (CO), San Miguel (CO), San Juan (NM), Emery, Garfield, Grand, Kane & Wayne.

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

  • San Juan County     (The home county of La Sal Junction)
    • The following are listed by their distance from La Sal Junction, with the one closest to La Sal Junction listed first.
    • La Sal
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
    • Spanish Valley
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
      • Spanish Valley is located in San Juan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Spanish Valley
    • La Sal ‑ Historic
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
      • La Sal is located in San Juan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Sal
      • Former name for La Sal:
      • Coyote
      • La Sal has also been known as:
      • Old La Sal
    • Home of Truth ‑ Historic
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
      • Home of Truth is located in San Juan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Home of Truth
    • Carlisle ‑ Historic
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
      • Carlisle is located in San Juan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Carlisle
    • Monticello
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
  • Grand County
    • The following are listed by their distance from La Sal Junction, with the one closest to La Sal Junction listed first.
    • Plainfield ‑ Historic
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
      • Plainfield is located in Grand County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Plainfield
      • Plainfield has also been known as:
      • Bueno
      • Poverty Flat
      • Poverty Flats
      • Spanish Valley
    • Wilson's Mesa ‑ Historic
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
      • Wilson's Mesa is located in Grand County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wilson's Mesa
      • Wilson's Mesa has also been known as:
      • Mesa
    • Basin ‑ Historic
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
      • Basin is located in Grand County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Basin
    • Moab
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
      • Moab is located in Grand County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Moab
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 5,373 people
      • Former names for Moab:
      • Grand Valley
      • Mormon Fort
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Moab <1>
    • Castleton ‑ Historic
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
      • Castleton is located in Grand County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Castleton
    • Castle Valley
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
      • Castle Valley is located in Grand County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Castle Valley
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 351 people
    • Richardson ‑ Historic
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
      • Richardson is located in Grand County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Richardson
  • Montrose County (CO)
    • The following are listed by their distance from La Sal Junction, with the one closest to La Sal Junction listed first.
    • Paradox
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
    • Bedrock
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)

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

Cemeteries Near La Sal Junction ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of La Sal Junction.

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 La Sal Junction - one of the links might be able to help.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from La Sal Junction, with the one closest to La Sal Junction 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.<4>

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

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

  • La Sal
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
  • La Sal ‑ Historic
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
    • La Sal is located in San Juan County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Sal
    • Former name for La Sal:
    • Coyote
    • La Sal has also been known as:
    • Old La Sal
  • Moab
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Moab is located in Grand County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Moab
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 5,373 people
    • Former names for Moab:
    • Grand Valley
    • Mormon Fort
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Moab <1>
  • Paradox
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
  • Bedrock
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
  • Richardson ‑ Historic
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
    • Richardson is located in Grand County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Richardson

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

Newspapers Published in La Sal Junction ...

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 4 newspapers that have been published in the area around La Sal Junction.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of La Sal Junction, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for La Sal Junction.

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 La Sal Junction:

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>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- La Sal Junction) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<4>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 La Sal Junction, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.