RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Virginia >> Wise County >> Coeburn >> 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 Coeburn (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 Coeburn. 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 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.

Coeburn is located in Wise 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 Wise County: Harlan (KY), Letcher (KY), Pike (KY), Dickenson, Lee, Russell & Scott.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Coeburn ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Coeburn.

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 Coeburn - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Powers Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the south)
  • Buchanan Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
  • Bondtown Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • Greenwood Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the north)
  • Bruce Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Kise Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • Dingus Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • Barker Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
  • Ramey Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
  • Kilgore Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
  • Reed Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Hall Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Continue List   (1406 more) ...
    • Kiser Cemetery
      (Less than 2 miles to the west)
    • Lawson Cemetery
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
    • McReynolds Cemetery
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)

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 in 1895, Coeburn had railroad service and no post office. In 2020, Coeburn had a population of 1,835 people.

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

  • Banner
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the east)
    • Banner is located in Wise County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Banner
  • Tacoma
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
    • Tacoma is located in Wise County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tacoma
  • Hurricane
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
    • Hurricane is located in Wise County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hurricane
  • Dwina
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Virginia City
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
    • Virginia City is located in Wise County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Virginia City
  • Dungannon
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
  • Clinch
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
    • Clinch is located in Scott County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Clinch
  • Saint Paul
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
  • John
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
    • John is located in Russell County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for John
  • Castlewood
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
  • Lipps
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
    • Lipps is located in Wise County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lipps
  • Wood
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
    • Wood is located in Scott County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wood
  • Continue List   (14 more) ...
    • Bickley Mill
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
    • Dorado
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
      • Dorado is located in Russell County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dorado
    • Stratton
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Stratton is located in Dickenson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Stratton

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Coeburn ...

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 33 newspapers that have been published in the area around Coeburn.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Coeburn. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Coeburn and those printed in the larger area surrounding Coeburn.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 16 miles [25.7 km]<3> of Coeburn.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first turn to 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 Coeburn:

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 Coeburn, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Coeburn) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.