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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 Orpha (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 Orpha. 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 southwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most 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.

Orpha is located in Converse County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Converse County: Albany, Campbell, Carbon, Johnson, Natrona, Niobrara, Platte & Weston.

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

  • Converse County     (The home county of Orpha)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Orpha, with the one closest to Orpha listed first.
    • Douglas
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
    • Rolling Hills
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Rolling Hills have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rolling Hills
      • Rolling Hills is located in Converse County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 420 people
    • Glenrock
      (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
    • Orin
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Orin have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Orin
      • Orin is located in Converse County
    • Boxelder
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Boxelder have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Boxelder
      • Boxelder is located in Converse County
    • Shawnee
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
    • Bill
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Lost Springs
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
  • Natrona County
    • Meadow Acres
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Meadow Acres have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Meadow Acres
      • Meadow Acres is located in Natrona County

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

Newspapers Published in Orpha ...

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 12 newspapers that have been published in the area around Orpha.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Orpha, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Orpha.

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 professional and volunteer 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 Orpha:

Cemeteries Near Orpha ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Orpha.

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

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

  • Ft. Fetterman Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
  • Pioneer Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Douglas Park Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
  • H A Unthank Grave
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the H A Unthank Grave is located 4 miles [6.4 km]<3> to the northwest of Glenrock.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the H A Unthank Grave
  • Glenrock Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
  • Grant Cemetery
    (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Grant Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Grant Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #84033 <4>

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>

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

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

  • Douglas
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
  • Irvine
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Irvine have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Irvine
    • Irvine is located in Converse County
  • Glenrock
    (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
  • Orin Junction
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Orin Junction have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Orin Junction
    • Orin Junction is located in Converse County
  • Boxelder
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Boxelder have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Boxelder
    • Boxelder is located in Converse County
  • Bona
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Bona have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bona
    • Bona is located in Converse County
  • Shawnee
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
  • Lost Springs
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)

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

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

The official website for Converse County: www.conversecounty.org/

The official website for State of Wyoming: www.wyo.gov/

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 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.
<3>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 drawn from Point A (ie- Orpha) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Orpha. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 42.8547, Longitude: -105.5036       In this case, the coordinates for Orpha have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<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 Orpha, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 07 Apr 2024