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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 Helen (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 Helen. 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 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.

Helen is located in Benton County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Benton County: Morrow (OR), Umatilla (OR), Franklin, Grant, Klickitat, Walla Walla & Yakima.

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

  • Benton County     (The home county of Helen)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Helen, with the one closest to Helen listed first.
    • West Richland
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
    • Benton City
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
    • Richland
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Prosser
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
  • Adams County
    • Othello
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
  • Franklin County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Helen, with the one closest to Helen listed first.
    • Basin City
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
    • Mesa
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mesa
      • Mesa is located in Franklin County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 514 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Mesa <1>
    • Eltopia
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
  • Grant County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Helen, with the one closest to Helen listed first.
    • Desert Aire
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
    • Mattawa
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Royal City
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
    • Beverly
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Wanapum Village
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Wanapum Village have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wanapum Village
      • Wanapum Village is located in Grant County
  • Kittitas County
  • Yakima County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Helen, with the one closest to Helen listed first.
    • Sunnyside
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Grandview
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Outlook
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Outlook
      • Outlook is located in Yakima County

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

Newspapers Published in Helen ...

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 24 newspapers that have been published in the area around Helen.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Helen, 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 Helen.

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 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 Helen:

Cemeteries Near Helen ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Helen.

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

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

  • Black Rock Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Black Rock Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Black Rock Cemetery
  • Pleasant Valley Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Pleasant Valley Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Pleasant Valley Cemetery
  • Evergreen Cemetery
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Evergreen Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Evergreen Cemetery
  • Sunnyside Cemetery
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Sunnyside Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Sunnyside Cemetery
  • Lower Valley Memorial Gardens
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Lower Valley Memorial Gardens have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Lower Valley Memorial Gardens
  • Sunnyside Memorial Gardens
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Sunnyside Memorial Gardens have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Sunnyside Memorial Gardens
  • Sunset Memorial Gardens
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Sunset Memorial Gardens have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Sunset Memorial Gardens
  • American Legion Cemetery
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
  • Grandview Cemetery
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Grandview Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Grandview Cemetery
  • Resthaven Cemetery
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
    • The Resthaven Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Rest Haven Cemetery
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Resthaven Cemetery
  • Prosser Cemetery
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
  • Eltopia Cemetery
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Eltopia Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Eltopia Cemetery

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

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

The official website for Benton County: www.co.benton.wa.us/

The official website for State of Washington: https://access.wa.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>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 drawn from Point A (ie- Helen) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Helen. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 46.6268, Longitude: -119.6056       In this case, the coordinates for Helen have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<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.




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 07 Apr 2024