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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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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 Olds (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 Olds. 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.

Olds is located in Chelan County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Chelan County: Douglas, King, Kittitas, Okanogan, Skagit & Snohomish.

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

  • Chelan County     (The home county of Olds)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Olds, with the one closest to Olds listed first.
    • Sunnyslope
      (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
      • Sunnyslope is located in Chelan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sunnyslope
    • West Wenatchee
      (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
      • West Wenatchee is located in Chelan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for West Wenatchee
    • Wenatchee
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the south)
    • Appleyard
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
      • Appleyard is located in Chelan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Appleyard
    • Monitor
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
    • Cashmere
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Malaga
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
    • Dryden
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Peshastin
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Entiat
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
    • Leavenworth
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northwest)
    • Ardenvoir
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
  • Douglas County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Olds, with the one closest to Olds listed first.
    • East Wenatchee Bench
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
      • East Wenatchee Bench is located in Douglas County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for East Wenatchee Bench
    • East Wenatchee
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Rock Island
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Orondo
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
    • Waterville
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Palisades
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
      • Palisades is located in Douglas County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Palisades
    • Okanogan City ‑ Historic
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Okanogan City is located in Douglas County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Okanogan City
    • Withrow
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Withrow is located in Douglas County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Withrow
    • Beebe
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Beebe is located in Douglas County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Beebe
  • Grant County
    • Quincy
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Kittitas County
    • Liberty
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Liberty is located in Kittitas County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Liberty
      • Former names for Liberty:
      • Meaghersville
      • Williams Creek

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

Cemeteries Near Olds ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Olds.

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

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

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

  • Wenatchee City Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wenatchee City Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Wenatchee City Cemetery is a very large cemetery that is located outside and to the northwest of Wenatchee.
    • The Wenatchee City Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Wenatchee Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #1053458 <2>
  • Valley View Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
  • Sunnyslope Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • Evergreen Memorial Park
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Hamilton Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
  • South Side Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Cashmere Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Stemilt Hill Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
  • Orondo Community Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
  • Entiat Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
  • Peshastin Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Badger Mtn. Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Continue List   (13 more) ...
    • Waterville Cemetery
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Waterville Cemetery
      • The Waterville Cemetery has also been known as:
      • Fraternity Cemetery
    • Leavenworth Cemetery
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Mountain View Cemetery
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)

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 Olds in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Olds.

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

  • Wenatchee
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the south)
  • Orondo
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
  • Peshastin
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
  • Waterville
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Douglas
    (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
    • Douglas is located in Douglas County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Douglas

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

Newspapers Published in Olds ...

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 Olds.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Olds, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Olds.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we like to 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 Olds:

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 Olds, 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- Olds) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.