RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Florida >> Bay County >> Cook >> 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 Cook (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 Cook. 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 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.

Cook is located in Bay 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 Bay County: Calhoun, Gulf, Jackson, Walton & Washington.

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

  • Bay County     (The home county of Cook)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Cook, with the one closest to Cook listed first.
    • Callaway
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
    • Parker
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
      • Parker is located in Bay County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Parker
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 4,109 people
    • Bay Harbor ‑ Historic
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
      • Bay Harbor is located in Bay County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bay Harbor
    • Springfield
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
    • Cedar Grove
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
      • Cedar Grove is located in Bay County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cedar Grove
    • Hiland Park
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
      • Hiland Park is located in Bay County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hiland Park
    • Panama City
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
    • Lynn Haven
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Pretty Bayou
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Pretty Bayou is located in Bay County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pretty Bayou
    • Magnolia Beach
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
      • Magnolia Beach is located in Bay County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Magnolia Beach
    • Mexico Beach
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
    • Lower Grand Lagoon
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
      • Lower Grand Lagoon is located in Bay County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lower Grand Lagoon
  • Calhoun County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Cook, with the one closest to Cook listed first.
    • Kinard
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Marysville
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
      • Marysville is located in Calhoun County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Marysville
    • Clarksville
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Gulf County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Cook, with the one closest to Cook listed first.
    • Wetappo
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
      • Wetappo is located in Gulf County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wetappo
    • Wewahitchka
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
    • White City
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
      • White City is located in Gulf County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for White City
    • Port Saint Joe
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
  • Liberty County
    • Lewis
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
      • Lewis is located in Liberty County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lewis
  • Washington County
    • Ebro
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
      • Ebro is located in Washington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ebro
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 285 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Ebro <1>

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

Cemeteries Near Cook ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Cook.

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

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

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

  • Marywood Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
  • Millville Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
  • Redwood Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
  • Farmdale Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
  • Kent Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
  • Evergreen Memorial Gardens
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
  • Bayou George Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
  • Oakland Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
  • Bay Memorial Park
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
  • Lynn Haven Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Evergreen Memorial Gardens
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
  • Greenwood Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
  • Continue List   (26 more) ...
    • Kemp Cemetery
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
    • Wetappo Cemetery
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
    • Williamsburg Cemetery
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)

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 Cook in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Cook.

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

  • Wewahitchka
    (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
  • Marysville
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Marysville is located in Calhoun County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Marysville
  • Abe Springs
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Abe Springs is located in Calhoun County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Abe Springs
  • Lewis
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
    • Lewis is located in Liberty County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lewis

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

Newspapers Published in Cook ...

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 19 newspapers that have been published in the area around Cook.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Cook, 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 Cook.

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 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 Cook:

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