RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Virginia >> Highland County >> Palo Alto >> Genealogy HelperIndex...










Learn About
The Commemorative
Quarter for
Virginia

The Commemorative Quarter for Virginia





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 Palo Alto (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 Palo Alto. 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 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.

Palo Alto is located in Highland County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Highland County: Augusta, Bath, Pendleton (WV) & Pocahontas (WV).

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

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

Cemeteries Near Palo Alto ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Palo Alto.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Palo Alto, with the one closest to Palo Alto 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.<6>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that in 1895, Palo Alto had a post office and no railroad service.

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

  • Doe Hill
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Doe Hill have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Doe Hill
    • Doe Hill is located in Highland County
  • Sugar Grove
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • McDowell
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
  • West Augusta
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
  • New Hampden
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for New Hampden have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for New Hampden
    • New Hampden is located in Highland County
  • Monterey
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Monterey have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Monterey
    • Monterey is located in Highland County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 136 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Monterey <1>
  • Stribling Springs
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Stribling Springs have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Stribling Springs
    • Stribling Springs is located in Augusta County
  • Vanderpool
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Vanderpool have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Vanderpool
    • Vanderpool is located in Highland County
  • Clover Creek
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Hightown
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Hightown. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hightown
    • Hightown is located in Highland County
    • Google driving directions:
    • From your current location to Hightown
    • From Palo Alto to Hightown
  • Deerfield
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
  • Lone Fountain
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Lone Fountain have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lone Fountain
    • Lone Fountain is located in Augusta County
  • Continue List   (17 more) ...
    • Sangerville
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Sangerville have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sangerville
      • Sangerville is located in Augusta County
    • Dry Run
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Dry Run. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dry Run
      • Dry Run is located in Pendleton County (WV)
      • Google driving directions:
      • From your current location to Dry Run
      • From Palo Alto to Dry Run
    • Brandywine
      (15 miles [24.1 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 Palo Alto. See our List of 1890's Communities around Palo Alto.

Newspapers Published in Palo Alto ...

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 42 newspapers that have been published in the area around Palo Alto.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Palo Alto, there are papers which were published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<5>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Palo Alto.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we 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 Palo Alto:

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

The official website for Highland County: www.highlandcova.org/

The official website for State of Virginia: https://www.virginia.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>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>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.
<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>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- Palo Alto) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Palo Alto. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 38.4235, Longitude: -79.3705       In this case, the coordinates for Palo Alto have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<6>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 Palo Alto, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

Copyright 2025
All Rights Reserved

Thank you for visiting our website.

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: 31 Mar 2025