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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 Roper (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 Roper. 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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors and hospitals were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Roper is located in Jefferson 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 Jefferson County: Bibb, Blount, Saint Clair, Shelby, Tuscaloosa & Walker.

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

  • Jefferson County     (The home county of Roper)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Roper, with the one closest to Roper listed first.
    • Breakstone Village
      (Less than 2 miles to the north)
      • Breakstone Village is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Breakstone Village
    • East Trussville ‑ Historic
      (Less than 2 miles to the north)
      • East Trussville is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for East Trussville
    • Cahaba Village
      (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
      • Cahaba Village is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cahaba Village
    • Trussville
      (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
    • Lola City
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southwest)
      • Lola City is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lola City
    • Alton
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
    • McCombs
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Grayson Valley
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Grayson Valley is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grayson Valley
    • Scott City
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
      • Scott City is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Scott City
    • Leeds
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Chalkville
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
    • Cedar Grove ‑ Historic
      (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
      • Cedar Grove is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cedar Grove
  • Blount County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Roper, with the one closest to Roper listed first.
    • Dale ‑ Historic
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
      • Dale is located in Blount County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dale
    • Compton
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
    • Remlap
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
    • Selfville
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
      • Selfville is located in Blount County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Selfville
    • County Line
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Dallas
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
      • Dallas is located in Blount County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dallas
    • Adville
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
    • Locust Fork
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
    • Warrior
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Little Warrior
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
    • Allgood
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
      • Allgood is located in Blount County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Allgood
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 638 people
    • Appalachian
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Calhoun County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Roper, with the one closest to Roper listed first.
    • Bruner ‑ Historic
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
      • Bruner is located in Calhoun County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bruner
    • Macon
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
  • Cullman County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Roper, with the one closest to Roper listed first.
    • Baltimore ‑ Historic
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Baltimore is located in Cullman County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Baltimore
    • Black Bottom
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Garden City
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
    • Colony
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
    • The Colony
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
      • The Colony is located in Cullman County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for The Colony
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 291 people
    • Arkadelphia
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Damascus
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Saint Clair County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Roper, with the one closest to Roper listed first.
    • Acmar
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
    • Moody
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
    • Parsons
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
    • Woodland Village
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Woodland Village is located in Saint Clair County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Woodland Village
    • Brompton
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
    • Argo
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Argo is located in Saint Clair County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Argo
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 4,278 people
    • Margaret
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
    • Turnbough Town
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Turnbough Town is located in Saint Clair County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Turnbough Town
    • Cook's Springs
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
      • Cook's Springs is located in Saint Clair County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cook's Springs
    • Odenville
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Branchville
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Branchville is located in Saint Clair County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Branchville
    • Springville
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Shelby County
  • Talladega County
  • Walker County

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

Cemeteries Near Roper ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Roper.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Roper, with the one closest to Roper 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 Roper in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Roper.

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

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

Newspapers Published in Roper ...

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 Roper.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Roper, there are papers which were published within 4 miles [6.4 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Roper.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit 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 Roper:

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 Roper, 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 things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Roper) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.