RoadsideThoughts
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 Orion (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 Orion. 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 northwest 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 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.

Orion is located in Pike 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 Pike County: Barbour, Bullock, Coffee, Crenshaw, Dale & Montgomery.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Orion ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Orion.

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

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

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

  • Orion Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the north)
  • McNeil - Townsend Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the north)
  • Mt. Moriah Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
  • Mt. Gilead Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
  • Tick Hill Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
  • China Grove Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
  • Belsor Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
  • Sanders Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
  • Williams & Andrew Jackson Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Dennis Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Pine Grove Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Antioch Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Continue List   (324 more) ...
    • Kelley Cemetery
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
    • Stills Cemetery
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
    • Edwards Cemetery
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)

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.<2>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Orion had a population of 172 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service.

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

  • Curry
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southwest)
    • Curry is located in Pike County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Curry
  • China Grove
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
    • China Grove is located in Pike County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for China Grove
  • Center Point
    (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
  • Pine Level
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Ansley
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Linwood
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
  • Shady Grove
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
    • Shady Grove is located in Pike County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Shady Grove
  • Troy
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
  • Mount Hillard
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Mount Hillard is located in Bullock County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mount Hillard
  • Meadville
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Meadville is located in Montgomery County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Meadville
  • Catalpa
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Catalpa is located in Pike County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Catalpa
  • Postoak
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
  • Continue List   (15 more) ...
    • Hector
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Hector is located in Bullock County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hector
    • Shopton
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
      • Shopton is located in Bullock County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Shopton
    • Grady
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)

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

Newspapers Published in Orion ...

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 5 newspapers that have been published in the area around Orion.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Orion, there are papers which were published within 20 miles [32.2 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Orion.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first turn to 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 Orion:

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>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 Orion, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Orion) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.