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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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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 Oakahalla (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 Oakahalla. 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 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.

Oakahalla is located in Walker County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Walker County: Blount, Cullman, Fayette, Jefferson, Marion, Tuscaloosa & Winston.

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

  • Walker County     (The home county of Oakahalla)
  • Blount County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Oakahalla, with the one closest to Oakahalla listed first.
    • Red Hill
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Red Hill is located in Blount County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Red Hill
    • Warrior
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Reid's
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Smoke Rise
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Smoke Rise is located in Blount County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Smoke Rise
    • County Line
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
    • Blount Springs
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Hayden
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Selfville
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
      • Selfville is located in Blount County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Selfville
    • Dale ‑ Historic
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
      • Dale is located in Blount County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dale
    • Dallas
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
      • Dallas is located in Blount County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dallas
    • Bangor
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Compton
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
  • Cullman County
  • Fayette County
  • Jefferson County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Oakahalla, with the one closest to Oakahalla listed first.
    • Media
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Robbins Crossroads
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
    • West Jefferson
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
      • West Jefferson is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for West Jefferson
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 415 people
    • Sayre
      (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
      • Sayre is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sayre
    • Graysville
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Alden
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
      • Alden is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alden
    • Corner
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
      • Corner is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Corner
    • Cardiff
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Cardiff is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cardiff
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 55 people
    • Adamsville
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Brookside
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Pinkney City
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
      • Pinkney City is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pinkney City
    • Black Creek
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
  • Shelby County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Oakahalla, with the one closest to Oakahalla listed first.
    • Inverness
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Inverness is located in Shelby County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Inverness
    • Bridgeton
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)
      • Bridgeton is located in Shelby County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bridgeton
    • Indian Springs Village
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)
      • Indian Springs Village is located in Shelby County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Indian Springs Village
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,628 people
    • Lake Purdy
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)
      • Lake Purdy is located in Shelby County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lake Purdy
    • Meadowbrook
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)
      • Meadowbrook is located in Shelby County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Meadowbrook
  • Tuscaloosa County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Oakahalla, with the one closest to Oakahalla listed first.
    • Bull City
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
      • Bull City is located in Tuscaloosa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bull City
    • Kellerman
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Abernant
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
    • Lake View
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
      • Lake View is located in Tuscaloosa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lake View
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,732 people
  • Winston County

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

Cemeteries Near Oakahalla ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Oakahalla.

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 Oakahalla - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

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.<3>

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

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

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

Newspapers Published in Oakahalla ...

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 7 newspapers that have been published in the area around Oakahalla.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Oakahalla, there are papers which were published within 9 miles [14.5 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Oakahalla.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we like to start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These websites either 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 Oakahalla:

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 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.
<3>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 Oakahalla, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or 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- Oakahalla) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.