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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 Yelm (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 Yelm. 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 southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors and hospitals were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Yelm is located in Thurston 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 Thurston County: Grays Harbor, Lewis, Mason & Pierce.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Yelm ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Yelm.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Yelm, with the one closest to Yelm 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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Yelm had a population of 53 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service. In 2020, Yelm had a population of 9,591 people.

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

  • Roy
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
  • McIntosh
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Hillhurst
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Hillhurst have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hillhurst
    • Hillhurst is located in Pierce County
  • Plumb
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Plumb have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Plumb
    • Plumb is located in Thurston County
  • Tenino
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Leber
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Leber have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Leber
    • Leber is located in Pierce County
  • Lacey
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Lake City
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Lake City have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lake City
    • Lake City is located in Pierce County
  • Tumwater
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
  • Bucoda
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Lakeview
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Lakeview have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lakeview
    • Lakeview is located in Pierce County
  • Steilacoom
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
  • Continue List   (16 more) ...

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Yelm ...

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 150 newspapers that have been published in the area around Yelm.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Yelm. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Yelm and those printed in the larger area surrounding Yelm.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 23 miles [37 km]<6> of Yelm.

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 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 Yelm:

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

The official website for Thurston County: www.co.thurston.wa.us/

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>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 Yelm, 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' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Yelm) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Yelm. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 46.9420, Longitude: -122.6066    









 

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This page was last modified/updated: 29 Apr 2025