Spelter, West Virginia

Our Genealogical Helper for Spelter ...

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

• That it be a tool that can help us with planning our trips.
• That it also helps us to understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.

By learning about Spelter (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 insight while doing our genealogical research.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this, our Genealogical Helper for Spelter. 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.

It's still very early in our research, but as we gather more information it will be added to this page.

Newspapers Published in Spelter ...

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 45 newspapers that have been published in the area around Spelter.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Spelter, there are papers which were published within 12 miles [19.3 km]^<1>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Spelter.

Cemeteries Near Spelter ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Spelter.

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 click on the [Map] that follows each cemetery's name, a new browser window will open with a Google map showing a satellite view of the area where the cemetery is located. We have tried to place the cemetery in the center of the map, but we're still working on our data and the map might not not be centered properly. If you don't see the cemetery right away, try zooming-in. Usually, but not always, you can see the outline of the cemetery and some of the headstones.

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

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

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

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Spelter. The list can be found on our page for Communities Neighboring Spelter in the 1890's.

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 and hospitals 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.

Spelter is located in Harrison County.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Harrison County: Barbour, Doddridge, Lewis, Marion, Taylor, Upshur & Wetzel.

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

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

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we begin with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch, the UsGenWeb Project or Genealogy Trails. These websites either offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to all and free to view - although they might link to other websites which do charge.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Spelter:

These websites are specific to West Virginia:

Website for the West Virginia State Archives

Not to be confused with the official state website, we've found the Digital State Archives website for the State of West Virginia to be a good source for additional links.

These pages are specific to Harrison County:

Genealogy information for nearby counties:

Cemetery Information and Directories for West Virginia:

Of Special Interest ...

The GenDisasters website specializes in newspaper articles about tragedies and disasters. While it makes interesting reading all by itself, it should be of special interest to genealogists and family historians looking for people who were either affected by or directly involved in such tragedies.

Other Roadside Stops ...

Search for a West Virginia Community

About Harrison County

About West Virginia

Off-the-Road Links ...

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

The official website for Harrison County: www.harrisoncountywv.com/

The official website for State of West Virginia: www.wv.gov/

Footnotes ...