RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Washington >> Stevens County >> Ward >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

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 Ward (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 Ward. 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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Ward is located in Stevens 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 Stevens County: Ferry, Lincoln, Pend Oreille & Spokane.

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

  • Stevens County     (The home county of Ward)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Ward, with the one closest to Ward listed first.
    • Kettle Falls
      (Less than 2 miles to the west)
    • Marcus
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Marcus is located in Stevens County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Marcus
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 172 people
    • Blue Town ‑ Historic
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
      • Blue Town is located in Stevens County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Blue Town
    • Pinkney City
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
      • Pinkney City is located in Stevens County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pinkney City
    • Colville
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Evans
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
    • Rice
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
      • Rice is located in Stevens County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rice
    • Marble
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
      • Marble is located in Stevens County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Marble
    • Daisy
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
      • Daisy is located in Stevens County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Daisy
    • Addy
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
    • Gifford
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
    • Spirit
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
      • Spirit is located in Stevens County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Spirit
    • Northport
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
  • Ferry County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Ward, with the one closest to Ward listed first.
    • Barstow
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
      • Barstow is located in Ferry County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Barstow
    • Orient
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
      • Orient is located in Ferry County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Orient
    • Inchelium
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
    • Laurier
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
    • Malo
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Pend Oreille County
    • Ione
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
      • Ione is located in Pend Oreille County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ione
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 485 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Ione <1>

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

Cemeteries Near Ward ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Ward.

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

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

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

  • Meyers Falls Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Grandview Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
  • Calvary Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Highland Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Mountain View Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Evergreen Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Evergreen Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Evergreen Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the northeast of Colville.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #76777 <2>
  • Bossburg Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
  • Cully Memorial Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Kelly Hill Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
  • Stranger Creek Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
  • Summit Valley Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
  • Old Northport Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Continue List   (4 more) ...
    • Forest Home Cemetery
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
    • Chewelah City Cemetery
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Chewelah Memorial Park
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)

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

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

  • Kettle Falls
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Marcus
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Marcus is located in Stevens County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Marcus
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 172 people
  • Colville
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Bossburg ‑ Historic
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
    • Bossburg is located in Stevens County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bossburg
  • Harvey ‑ Historic
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Harvey is located in Stevens County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Harvey
  • Arden
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Arden is located in Stevens County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arden
  • Daisy
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
    • Daisy is located in Stevens County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Daisy
  • Little Dalles ‑ Historic
    (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
    • Little Dalles is located in Stevens County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Little Dalles
  • Addy
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
  • Chewelah
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)

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

Newspapers Published in Ward ...

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 35 newspapers that have been published in the area around Ward.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Ward, there are papers which were published within 28 miles [45.1 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Ward.

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 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 Ward:

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 Ward, 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' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Ward) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.