RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Washington >> Skagit County >> Lake McMurray >> Genealogy HelperIndex...










Learn About
The Commemorative
Quarter for
Washington

The Commemorative Quarter for Washington





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 Lake McMurray (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 Lake McMurray. 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 Lake McMurray ...

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 have occurred.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Lake McMurray: Lk. McMurray

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 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.

Lake McMurray is located in Skagit 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 Skagit County: Chelan, Island, Okanogan, San Juan, Snohomish & Whatcom.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Lake McMurray ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Lake McMurray.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Lake McMurray, with the one closest to Lake McMurray 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.<5>

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

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

  • McMurray
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for McMurray have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for McMurray
    • McMurray is located in Skagit County
  • Montborne
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
  • Bryant
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Bryant. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bryant
    • Bryant is located in Snohomish County
    • Google driving directions:
    • From your current location to Bryant
    • From Lake McMurray to Bryant
  • Big Lake
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Big Lake have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Big Lake
    • Big Lake is located in Skagit County
  • Florence
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Florence. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Florence
    • Florence is located in Snohomish County
    • Google driving directions:
    • From your current location to Florence
    • From Lake McMurray to Florence
  • Norman
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Norman have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Norman
    • Norman is located in Snohomish County
  • Silvana
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
  • Skagit City
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Stanwood
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Mount Vernon
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
  • Arlington
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Trafton
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Trafton have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Trafton
    • Trafton is located in Snohomish County
  • Continue List   (13 more) ...

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

Newspapers Published in Lake McMurray ...

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 32 newspapers that have been published in the area around Lake McMurray.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Lake McMurray, there are papers which were published within 22 miles [35.4 km]<6>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Lake McMurray.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit 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 Lake McMurray:

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

The official website for Skagit County: www.skagitcounty.net/

The official website for State of Washington: https://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>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>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 Lake McMurray, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<6>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Lake McMurray) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Lake McMurray. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 48.3144, Longitude: -122.2317    









 

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: 29 Apr 2025