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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 Lower Elwha (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 Lower Elwha. 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 southwest 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 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 west 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.

Lower Elwha is located in Clallam County.

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

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

  • Clallam County     (The home county of Lower Elwha)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Lower Elwha, with the one closest to Lower Elwha listed first.
    • Port Angeles
      (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
    • Elwha
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
      • Elwha is located in Clallam County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Elwha
    • Joyce
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
    • Port Crescent ‑ Historic
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
      • Port Crescent is located in Clallam County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Port Crescent
    • Little Oklahoma
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
      • Little Oklahoma is located in Clallam County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Little Oklahoma
    • Carlsborg
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
    • Fairholm
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
      • Fairholm is located in Clallam County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fairholm
    • Old Town
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
      • Old Town is located in Clallam County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Old Town
    • Twin
      (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
      • Twin is located in Clallam County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Twin
    • River Road
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
      • River Road is located in Clallam County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for River Road
    • Sequim
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
    • Bell Hill
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
      • Bell Hill is located in Clallam County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bell Hill
  • Jefferson County

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

Cemeteries Near Lower Elwha ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Lower Elwha.

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 Lower Elwha - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Ocean View Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
  • Port Crescent Pioneer Memorial Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
  • Mt. Angeles Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
  • St. Mary's Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for St. Mary's Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the St. Mary's Cemetery is located in the vicinity of Metchosin (BC)
    • The St. Mary's Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Metchosin Pioneer Cemetery
    • St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church Cemetery
    • St. Mary The Virgin Church Yard Cemetery
    • St. Mary The Virgin Churchyard Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2459848 <2>
  • Sooke Harbour Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
  • Muir Family Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Sooke Millenium Memorial Park
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sooke Millenium Memorial Park
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Sooke Millenium Memorial Park is located in Sooke (BC).
    • The Sooke Millenium Memorial Park has also been known as:
    • Millenium Memorial Park
  • Knox Presbyterian Church Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the northwest)
  • Sequim View Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
  • Harling Point Chinese Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Ross Bay Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Colwood Pioneer Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
  • Continue List   (6 more) ...
    • Hatley Memorial Gardens
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hatley Memorial Gardens
      • To give a relative sense of its location, the Hatley Memorial Gardens is a large cemetery that is located in Langford (BC).
      • The Hatley Memorial Gardens has also been known as:
      • Colwood Burial Park
      • Colwood Cemetery
      • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #639374 <2>
    • Jamestown Cemetery
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
    • Quadra Street Cemetery
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)

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.<3>

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

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

  • Port Angeles
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
  • Port Crescent ‑ Historic
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
    • Port Crescent is located in Clallam County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Port Crescent
  • Fairholm
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
    • Fairholm is located in Clallam County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fairholm
  • Rena
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
    • Rena is located in Clallam County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rena
  • Twin
    (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
    • Twin is located in Clallam County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Twin
  • Port Williams
    (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
    • Port Williams is located in Clallam County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Port Williams
  • Blyn
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
    • Blyn is located in Clallam County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Blyn
  • Pysht ‑ Historic
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
    • Pysht is located in Clallam County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pysht

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

Newspapers Published in Lower Elwha ...

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 39 newspapers that have been published in the area around Lower Elwha.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Lower Elwha, there are papers which were published within 19 miles [30.6 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Lower Elwha.

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 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 Lower Elwha:

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 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.
<3>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 Lower Elwha, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>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- Lower Elwha) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.