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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of West Virginia >> Nicholas County >> Keslers Cross Lanes >> 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 Keslers Cross Lanes (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 Keslers Cross Lanes. 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 Keslers Cross Lanes ...

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 occur.

While the name of this community is Keslers Cross Lanes, be aware that it's the common practice of mapmakers to remove the apostrophe from possessive names<1>. So Keslers Cross Lanes may originally have been Kesler's Cross Lanes.

Sometimes the trailing 's' might be dropped altogether, in which case Keslers Cross Lanes might be written as Kesler Cross Lanes.

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.

Keslers Cross Lanes is located in Nicholas County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Nicholas County: Braxton, Clay, Fayette, Greenbrier, Kanawha & Webster.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Keslers Cross Lanes ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Keslers Cross Lanes.

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 Keslers Cross Lanes - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Dotson - Simpson Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Zoar Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Bethel Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • Keenan Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northwest)
  • Duling Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
  • White Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
  • Mt. Lookout Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
  • Fowlers Knob Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
  • Catholic Church Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
  • Groves Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
  • Neil Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
  • Legg Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Continue List   (267 more) ...
    • Mt. Gilead Cemetery
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Gilgal Cemetery
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
    • McCutchin Cemetery
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)

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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Keslers Cross Lanes had a population of 59 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service.

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

  • Zela
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
  • Tipton
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northwest)
  • Gilboa
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
    • Gilboa is located in Nicholas County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gilboa
  • Albion ‑ Historic
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
    • Albion is located in Nicholas County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Albion
  • Leander
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Leander is located in Fayette County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Leander
  • Elliot ‑ Historic
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Elliot is located in Fayette County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Elliot
  • Mount Lookout
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
    • Mount Lookout is located in Nicholas County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mount Lookout
  • Mount Nebo
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
  • Enon
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
    • Enon is located in Nicholas County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Enon
  • Clifty
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
  • Pool
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Pool is located in Nicholas County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pool
  • Deitz ‑ Historic
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Deitz is located in Fayette County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Deitz
  • Continue List   (16 more) ...
    • Fowler Knob
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
      • Fowler Knob is located in Nicholas County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fowler Knob
    • Mulvane ‑ Historic
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
      • Mulvane is located in Fayette County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mulvane
    • Mountain Cove
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
      • Mountain Cove is located in Fayette County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mountain Cove

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

Newspapers Published in Keslers Cross Lanes ...

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 14 newspapers that have been published in the area around Keslers Cross Lanes.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Keslers Cross Lanes, there are papers which were published within 16 miles [25.7 km]<5>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Keslers Cross Lanes.

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 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 Keslers Cross Lanes:

Footnotes ...

<1>It's generally believed that possessive apostrophes are removed to prevent confusion on maps where the apostrophe may be confused with a cartographic symbol. While this is generally true, it's not uncommon to find possessive apostrophes in administrative names (such as towns or counties).
<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 Keslers Cross Lanes, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<5>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a '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- Keslers Cross Lanes) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.