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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 Rock Island (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 Rock Island. 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 Rock Island ...

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 Rock Island: Rock Is. (in Canada, 'Isld.' is the more common abbreviation.)

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 southwest 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 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.

Rock Island is located in Douglas 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 Douglas County: Chelan, Grant, Kittitas, Lincoln & Okanogan.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Rock Island ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Rock Island.

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

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

  • Stemilt Hill Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Hamilton Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Hamilton Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Hamilton Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Evergreen Memorial Park
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Evergreen Memorial Park
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Evergreen Memorial Park have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • South Side Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the South Side Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the South Side Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Valley View Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Valley View Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Valley View Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Wenatchee City Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Sunnyslope Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Sunnyslope Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Sunnyslope Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Slack Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Slack Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Slack Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Badger Mtn. Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Badger Mtn. Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Badger Mtn. Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Cashmere Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Cashmere Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Cashmere Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Douglas Luthern Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Douglas Luthern Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Douglas Luthern Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Waterville Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
  • Continue List   (12 more) ...
    • Orondo Community Cemetery
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Orondo Community Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Orondo Community Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Evangelical Emanuel Cemetery
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Evangelical Emanuel Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Evangelical Emanuel Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Entiat Cemetery
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Entiat Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Entiat Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.

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.<4>

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

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Rock Island ...

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 Rock Island.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Rock Island. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Rock Island and those printed in the larger area surrounding Rock Island.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<5> of Rock Island.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we begin with 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 Rock Island:

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

The official website for Douglas County: www.douglascountywa.net/

The official website for State of Washington: https://wa.gov/

Footnotes ...

<1>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.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>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.
<4>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 Rock Island, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<5>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- Rock Island) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Rock Island. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 47.3754, Longitude: -120.1437    









 

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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