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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 Keams Canyon (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 Keams Canyon. 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 Keams Canyon ...

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 have occurred.

  • A typical abbreviation for Keams Canyon: Keams Cyn. (or less commonly used: Keams Canyn. or Keams Cnyn.)
  • While the name of this community is Keams Canyon, be aware that it's the common practice of mapmakers to remove the apostrophe from possessive names<1>. So Keams Canyon may originally have been Keam's Canyon.

    Sometimes the trailing 's' might be dropped altogether, in which case Keams Canyon might be written as Keam Canyon.

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 northwest 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 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 west 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.

Keams Canyon is located in Navajo County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Navajo County: Apache, Coconino, Gila, Graham & San Juan (UT).

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

  • Navajo County     (The home county of Keams Canyon)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Keams Canyon, with the one closest to Keams Canyon listed first.
    • Jeddito
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Jeddito have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jeddito
      • Jeddito is located in Navajo County
    • Low Mountain
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Low Mountain
      • Low Mountain is located in Navajo County
    • First Mesa
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for First Mesa
      • First Mesa is located in Navajo County
    • Polacca
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
    • Wepo Village
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Wepo Village have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wepo Village
      • Wepo Village is located in Navajo County
    • Hano
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hano
      • Hano is located in Navajo County
    • Walpi
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Walpi
      • Walpi is located in Navajo County
    • Second Mesa
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
    • Shongopovi
      (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Shongopovi have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Shongopovi
      • Shongopovi is located in Navajo County
    • Pinon
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
    • Tees Toh
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tees Toh
      • Tees Toh is located in Navajo County
    • Kykotsmovi Village
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
    • Oraibi
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oraibi
      • Oraibi is located in Navajo County
  • Apache County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Keams Canyon, with the one closest to Keams Canyon listed first.
    • Toyei
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Toyei
      • Toyei is located in Apache County
    • Steamboat
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Steamboat
      • Steamboat is located in Apache County
    • Cottonwood
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cottonwood
      • Cottonwood is located in Apache County
    • Blue Gap
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)

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

Newspapers Published in Keams Canyon ...

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 1 newspapers that have been published in the area around Keams Canyon.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Keams Canyon, there are papers which were published within 25 miles [40.2 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Keams Canyon.

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 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 Keams Canyon:

Cemeteries Near Keams Canyon ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Keams Canyon.

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

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

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

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

The official website for Navajo County: www.co.navajo.az.us/

The official website for State of Arizona: https://az.gov/

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>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>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Keams Canyon) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Keams Canyon. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 35.8124, Longitude: -110.1968    
<5>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.
<6>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.




 

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In closing, please keep in mind that we can not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of the information on this website, so use with care. We encourage you to double-check the information that is critical to you.

If you've found an error or have additional information that you would like to share, please don't hesitate to write: Click here to contact us.

This page was last modified/updated: 07 Apr 2024