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

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 Gulf Lagoon Beach: Gulf Lagoon Bch.

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 southwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals were in the next county to the west. 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 west 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.

Gulf Lagoon Beach 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 Gulf Lagoon Beach. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Gulf Lagoon Beach:

  • Bay County     (The home county of Gulf Lagoon Beach)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Gulf Lagoon Beach, with the one closest to Gulf Lagoon Beach listed first.
    • West Panama City Beach
      (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
    • Upper Grand Lagoon
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the east)
      • Upper Grand Lagoon is located in Bay County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Upper Grand Lagoon
    • Panama City Beach
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Lower Grand Lagoon
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
      • Lower Grand Lagoon is located in Bay County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lower Grand Lagoon
    • Magnolia Beach
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
      • Magnolia Beach is located in Bay County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Magnolia Beach
    • Pretty Bayou
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
      • Pretty Bayou is located in Bay County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pretty Bayou
    • Panama City
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
    • Bay Harbor ‑ Historic
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
      • Bay Harbor is located in Bay County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bay Harbor
    • Hiland Park
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
      • Hiland Park is located in Bay County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hiland Park
    • Lynn Haven
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Laguna Beach
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Springfield
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
    • Parker
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
      • Parker is located in Bay County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Parker
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 4,109 people
  • Gulf County
    • Wetappo
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
      • Wetappo is located in Gulf County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wetappo
  • Walton County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Gulf Lagoon Beach, with the one closest to Gulf Lagoon Beach listed first.
    • Inlet Beach
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Alys Beach
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Rosemary Beach
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Seagrove Beach
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Seaside
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
    • Grayton Beach
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Point Washington
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Blue Mountain Beach
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Santa Rosa Beach
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Washington County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Gulf Lagoon Beach, with the one closest to Gulf Lagoon Beach listed first.
    • Ebro
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
      • 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>
    • Millers Ferry
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
      • Millers Ferry is located in Washington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Millers Ferry

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

Cemeteries Near Gulf Lagoon Beach ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Gulf Lagoon Beach.

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 Gulf Lagoon Beach - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Bay Memorial Park
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Oakland Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Evergreen Memorial Gardens
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Greenwood Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Redwood Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
  • Millville Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
  • Marywood Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
  • Lynn Haven Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Evergreen Memorial Gardens
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
  • Bayou George Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Sand Hill Community Church Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sand Hill Community Church Cemetery
    • The Sand Hill Community Church Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Kingdom Life Ministries Cemetery
    • Victory Faith Tabernacle Cemetery
    • Victory of Faith Fellowship Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2267647 <2>
  • Kent Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
  • Continue List   (16 more) ...
    • Ebro Cemetery
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Farmdale Cemetery
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Porter Cemetery
      (22 miles [35.4 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 Gulf Lagoon Beach in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Gulf Lagoon Beach.

  • Millers Ferry
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
    • Millers Ferry is located in Washington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Millers Ferry

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

Newspapers Published in Gulf Lagoon Beach ...

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 13 newspapers that have been published in the area around Gulf Lagoon Beach.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Gulf Lagoon Beach, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Gulf Lagoon Beach.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit 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 Gulf Lagoon Beach:

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