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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 Coconut (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 Coconut. 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 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 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.

Coconut is located in Lee County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Lee County: Charlotte, Collier, Glades & Hendry.

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

  • Lee County     (The home county of Coconut)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Coconut, with the one closest to Coconut listed first.
    • Estero
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northeast)
    • San Carlos Park
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
      • San Carlos Park is located in Lee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for San Carlos Park
    • Three Oaks
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
      • Three Oaks is located in Lee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Three Oaks
    • Bonita Springs
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Forest Island Park
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
      • Forest Island Park is located in Lee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Forest Island Park
    • Fort Myers Beach
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Biggar
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
    • Harlem Heights
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Harlem Heights is located in Lee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Harlem Heights
    • Cypress Lake
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
      • Cypress Lake is located in Lee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cypress Lake
    • Villas
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
      • Villas is located in Lee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Villas
    • Truckland ‑ Historic
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Truckland is located in Lee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Truckland
    • Iona
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Iona is located in Lee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Iona
    • McGregor
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
      • McGregor is located in Lee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for McGregor
  • Collier County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Coconut, with the one closest to Coconut listed first.
    • Barefoot Beach
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
      • Barefoot Beach is located in Collier County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Barefoot Beach
    • Naples Park
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
    • Vanderbilt Beach
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
    • Pelican Bay
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
    • Pine Ridge
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
      • Pine Ridge is located in Collier County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pine Ridge
    • North Naples
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)
      • North Naples is located in Collier County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North Naples
    • Vineyards
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Vineyards is located in Collier County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Vineyards
    • Golden Gate
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Orangetree
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Orangetree is located in Collier County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Orangetree
    • East Naples
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
      • East Naples is located in Collier County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for East Naples
    • Naples
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
    • Lely
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
      • Lely is located in Collier County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lely
    • Naples Manor
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
      • Naples Manor is located in Collier County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Naples Manor
  • Hendry County

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

Cemeteries Near Coconut ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Coconut.

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

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

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

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

  • Punta Rassa
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Punta Rassa is located in Lee County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Punta Rassa
  • Sanibel
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
  • Saint James City
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Naples
    (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
  • Buckingham
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
    • Buckingham is located in Lee County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Buckingham
  • Alva
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)

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

Newspapers Published in Coconut ...

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 34 newspapers that have been published in the area around Coconut.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Coconut, there are papers which were published within 18 miles [29 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Coconut.

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 Coconut:

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