RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Florida >> Miami-Dade County >> Gateway West >> 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 Gateway West (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 Gateway West. 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.

Gateway West is located in Miami-Dade 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 Miami-Dade County: Broward, Collier & Monroe.

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

  • Miami-Dade County     (The home county of Gateway West)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Gateway West, with the one closest to Gateway West listed first.
    • Florida City
      (Less than 2 miles to the north)
    • Homestead
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the north)
    • Leisure City
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
      • Leisure City is located in Miami-Dade County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Leisure City
    • Redland
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
    • Naranja
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Princeton
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
    • Aladdin City
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
      • Aladdin City is located in Miami-Dade County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Aladdin City
    • Goulds
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Lindgren
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
      • Lindgren is located in Miami-Dade County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lindgren
    • Cutler Bay
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
    • South Miami Heights
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
      • South Miami Heights is located in Miami-Dade County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for South Miami Heights
    • Country Walk
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
      • Country Walk is located in Miami-Dade County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Country Walk
    • Lakes by the Bay
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
      • Lakes by the Bay is located in Miami-Dade County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lakes by the Bay
  • Monroe County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Gateway West, with the one closest to Gateway West listed first.
    • North Key Largo
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
      • North Key Largo is located in Monroe County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North Key Largo
    • Anglers Park
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
      • Anglers Park is located in Monroe County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Anglers Park
    • Key Largo
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
    • Sunset Point
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
    • Tavernier
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)

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

Cemeteries Near Gateway West ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Gateway West.

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 Gateway West - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Palm Memorial Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Silver Green Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Pinelawn Memorial
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)
  • Charlotte Jane Memorial Park
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)
  • Dade South Memorial Park
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)
  • Pine Lawn Memorial Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Woodlawn Park Cemetery South
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
  • Miami Memorial Park
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Star of David Memorial Park
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Lakeside Memorial Park
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
  • Charlotte Jane Memorial Park
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
  • Lakeside Memorial Park
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
  • Continue List   (10 more) ...
    • Our Lady of Mercy Cemetery
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • Woodlawn Park Cemetery
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Graceland Memorial Park
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)

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

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

  • Cutler
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Cutler is located in Miami-Dade County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cutler
  • Miami
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Miami is located in Miami-Dade County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Miami
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 471,525 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Miami <1>

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

Newspapers Published in Gateway West ...

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 237 newspapers that have been published in the area around Gateway West.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Gateway West, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Gateway West.

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 helpful 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 Gateway West:

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 Gateway West, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Gateway West) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.