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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 Sumpter (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 Sumpter. 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 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.

Sumpter is located in Bradley County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Bradley County: Ashley, Calhoun, Cleveland, Drew & Union.

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

  • Bradley County     (The home county of Sumpter)
  • Ashley County
  • Calhoun County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Sumpter, with the one closest to Sumpter listed first.
    • Tinsman
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
      • Tinsman is located in Calhoun County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tinsman
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 42 people
    • Harrell
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
      • Harrell is located in Calhoun County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Harrell
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 245 people
    • Hampton
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
  • Cleveland County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Sumpter, with the one closest to Sumpter listed first.
    • Orlando
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
    • Rye
      (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
    • Annover ‑ Historic
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
      • Annover is located in Cleveland County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Annover
    • New Edinburg
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Pansy
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Kingsland
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Kingsland is located in Cleveland County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kingsland
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 404 people
    • Saline
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Drew County
  • Lincoln County
  • Union County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Sumpter, with the one closest to Sumpter listed first.
    • Bolding
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
    • Lapile
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Felsenthal
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
      • Felsenthal is located in Union County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Felsenthal
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 139 people
    • Crain City
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Crain City is located in Union County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Crain City
    • Calion
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
      • Calion is located in Union County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Calion
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 440 people

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

Cemeteries Near Sumpter ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Sumpter.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Sumpter, with the one closest to Sumpter 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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that in 1895, Sumpter had a post office and no railroad service.

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

  • Simpson
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Simpson is located in Bradley County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Simpson
  • Johnsville
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
  • Warren
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
  • Ingalls
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Gravelridge
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
  • Saline ‑ Historic
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
    • Saline is located in Bradley County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Saline
  • Lacey
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
  • Sturgis ‑ Historic
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Sturgis is located in Bradley County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sturgis
  • Wilmar
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Lanark
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
  • Marsden
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Marsden is located in Bradley County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Marsden
  • Milo
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Milo is located in Ashley County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Milo
  • Continue List   (16 more) ...
    • Fountain Hill
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Jersey
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
    • Scipio
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
      • Scipio is located in Drew County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Scipio

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

Newspapers Published in Sumpter ...

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 36 newspapers that have been published in the area around Sumpter.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Sumpter, there are papers which were published within 25 miles [40.2 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Sumpter.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we start 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 Sumpter:

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