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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Virginia >> Roanoke County >> Bent Mountain >> 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 Bent Mountain (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 Bent Mountain. 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 Bent Mountain ...

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 Bent Mountain: Bent Mtn. (or less commonly used: Bent Mntn.)

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 southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Bent Mountain is located in Roanoke County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Roanoke County: Bedford, Botetourt, Craig, Floyd, Franklin & Montgomery.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Bent Mountain ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Bent Mountain.

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 Bent Mountain - one of the links might be able to help.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Bent Mountain, with the one closest to Bent Mountain listed first.

  • Shaver Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the south)
  • Lawrence Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • Lancaster Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
  • Lewis Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
  • King Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southwest)
  • Simpson Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southwest)
  • Kefauver Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southwest)
  • Adney Gap Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
  • Craighead Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
  • Wilson Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
  • Monte Vista Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Webster Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
  • Continue List   (779 more) ...
    • Kittinger Cemetery
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Nichols Cemetery
      (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
    • Wilson Cemetery
      (5 miles [8 km] to the south)

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.<2>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Bent Mountain had a population of 26 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service.

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

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

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 helpful 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 Bent Mountain:

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>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 Bent Mountain, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.