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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Alabama >> Shelby County >> Shoal Creek >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

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 Shoal Creek (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 Shoal Creek. 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 Shoal Creek ...

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 occur.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Shoal Creek: Shoal Crk. (or less commonly used: Shoal Ck. or Shoal Cr.)

You might be interested in other communities that are also named Shoal Creek. More information can be found on our Tidbits & Trivia Page for Shoal Creek.

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 southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Shoal Creek is located in Shelby 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 Shelby County: Bibb, Chilton, Coosa, Jefferson, Saint Clair & Talladega.

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

  • Shelby County     (The home county of Shoal Creek)
  • Bibb County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Shoal Creek, with the one closest to Shoal Creek listed first.
    • Eddings
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Eddings is located in Bibb County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Eddings
    • Cane Creek ‑ Historic
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Cane Creek is located in Bibb County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cane Creek
  • Blount County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Shoal Creek, with the one closest to Shoal Creek listed first.
    • Dale ‑ Historic
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
      • Dale is located in Blount County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dale
    • Compton
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
    • Remlap
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
    • County Line
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
    • Selfville
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
      • Selfville is located in Blount County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Selfville
    • Dallas
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
      • Dallas is located in Blount County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dallas
    • Warrior
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Coosa County
    • Aucheucaula ‑ Historic
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
      • Aucheucaula is located in Coosa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Aucheucaula
  • Jefferson County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Shoal Creek, with the one closest to Shoal Creek listed first.
    • Cahaba Landing
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
    • Cedar Grove ‑ Historic
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
      • Cedar Grove is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cedar Grove
    • Cahaba Heights
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
    • Irondale
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Mountain Brook
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Rock Ridge
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
    • Scott City
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
      • Scott City is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Scott City
    • Weems
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
    • Leeds
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
    • Lola City
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
      • Lola City is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lola City
    • Gate City
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Gate City is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gate City
    • Marks Village
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Marks Village is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Marks Village
  • Saint Clair County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Shoal Creek, with the one closest to Shoal Creek listed first.
    • Woodland Village
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Woodland Village is located in Saint Clair County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Woodland Village
    • Vincent
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
      • Vincent is located in Saint Clair County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Vincent
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,223 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Vincent <1>
    • Brompton
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
    • Moody
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
    • Acmar
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Parsons
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Cook's Springs
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Cook's Springs is located in Saint Clair County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cook's Springs
    • Fountainrun ‑ Historic
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
      • Fountainrun is located in Saint Clair County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fountainrun
    • Margaret
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
    • Turnbough Town
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
      • Turnbough Town is located in Saint Clair County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Turnbough Town
    • Easonville ‑ Historic
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
    • Argo
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
      • Argo is located in Saint Clair County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Argo
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 4,278 people
  • Talladega County
  • Tuscaloosa County
    • Tannehill
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Tannehill is located in Tuscaloosa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tannehill
  • Walker County

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

Cemeteries Near Shoal Creek ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Shoal Creek.

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 Shoal Creek - one of the links might be able to help.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Shoal Creek, with the one closest to Shoal Creek 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.<2>

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

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

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

Newspapers Published in Shoal Creek ...

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 Shoal Creek.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Shoal Creek, there are papers which were published within 9 miles [14.5 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Shoal Creek.

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 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 Shoal Creek:

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 Shoal Creek, 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 drawn from Point A (ie- Shoal Creek) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.