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The Commemorative Quarter for Florida





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 Apalachicola (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 Apalachicola. 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 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.

Apalachicola is located in Franklin County and is the County Seat.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Franklin County: Gulf, Liberty & Wakulla.

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

  • Franklin County     (The home county of Apalachicola)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Apalachicola, with the one closest to Apalachicola listed first.
    • Bay City
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Bay City have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bay City
      • Bay City is located in Franklin County
    • Eastpoint
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
    • Carrabelle
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Lanark Village
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Bay County
    • Mexico Beach
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Gulf County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Apalachicola, with the one closest to Apalachicola listed first.
    • White City
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for White City have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for White City
      • White City is located in Gulf County
    • Port Saint Joe
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
    • Wewahitchka
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Liberty County

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Apalachicola ...

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 16 newspapers that have been published in the area around Apalachicola.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Apalachicola. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Apalachicola and those printed in the larger area surrounding Apalachicola.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<3> of Apalachicola.

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 Apalachicola:

Cemeteries Near Apalachicola ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Apalachicola.

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

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

  • Chestnut Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
  • Magnolia Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • Eastpoint Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
  • Porters Bar Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Porters Bar Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Porters Bar Cemetery
  • Brown & Smith Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Brown & Smith Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Brown & Smith Cemetery
  • Forest Hill Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Forest Hill Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Forest Hill Cemetery
  • Robertson Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Robertson Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Robertson Cemetery
  • Roberts Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Roberts Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Roberts Cemetery
  • Williamsburg Cemetery
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Williamsburg Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Williamsburg Cemetery

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 Apalachicola had a population of 2,727 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service. In 2020, Apalachicola had a population of 2,372 people.

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

  • Carrabelle
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Wewahitchka
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)

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

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

The official website for Franklin County: www.franklincountyflorida.com/

The official website for State of Florida: www.myflorida.com/

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>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Apalachicola) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Apalachicola. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 29.7254, Longitude: -84.9920    
<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 Apalachicola, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 07 Apr 2024