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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 Haines City (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 Haines City. 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 Haines City ...

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 have occurred.

While the name of this city is Haines City, be aware that it's the common practice of mapmakers to remove the apostrophe from possessive names<1>. So Haines City may originally have been Haine's City.

Sometimes the trailing 's' might be dropped altogether, in which case Haines City might be written as Haine City.

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 doctors 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.

Haines City is located in Polk County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Polk County: Hardee, Highlands, Hillsborough, Lake, Manatee, Orange, Osceola, Pasco & Sumter.

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

  • Polk County     (The home county of Haines City)
  • Hillsborough County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Haines City, with the one closest to Haines City listed first.
    • Colonial Village
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Colonial Village have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Colonial Village
      • Colonial Village is located in Hillsborough County
    • Kings Village
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Kings Village have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kings Village
      • Kings Village is located in Hillsborough County
    • South Plant City Farms
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for South Plant City Farms have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for South Plant City Farms
      • South Plant City Farms is located in Hillsborough County
  • Lake County
  • Orange County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Haines City, with the one closest to Haines City listed first.
    • Bay Lake
      (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Bay Lake have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bay Lake
      • Bay Lake is located in Orange County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 48 people
    • Lake Buena Vista
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Lake Buena Vista have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lake Buena Vista
      • Lake Buena Vista is located in Orange County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 26 people
    • Hunters Creek
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Hunters Creek have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hunters Creek
      • Hunters Creek is located in Orange County
    • Southchase
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Southchase have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Southchase
      • Southchase is located in Orange County
    • Williamsburg
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Williamsburg have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Williamsburg
      • Williamsburg is located in Orange County
    • Doctor Phillips
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Doctor Phillips have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Doctor Phillips
      • Doctor Phillips is located in Orange County
    • Meadow Woods
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Meadow Woods have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Meadow Woods
      • Meadow Woods is located in Orange County
    • Bay Hill
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Bay Hill have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bay Hill
      • Bay Hill is located in Orange County
    • Sand Lake
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • Tangelo Park
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Tangelo Park have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tangelo Park
      • Tangelo Park is located in Orange County
    • Windermere
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
    • Taft
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Osceola County

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

Cemeteries Near Haines City ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Haines City.

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.

If you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our selection of Genealogy Websites (see below).

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Haines City, with the one closest to Haines City 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.<6>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Haines City had a population of 252 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Haines City had a population of 27,674 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Haines City ...

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 69 newspapers that have been published in the area around Haines City.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Haines City. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Haines City and those printed in the larger area surrounding Haines City.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<7> of Haines City.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we begin 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 Haines City:

The official website for Haines City: www.ci.haines-city.fl.us/

The official website for Polk County: www.polk-county.net/

The official website for State of Florida: https://www.myflorida.com/

Footnotes ...

<1>It's generally believed that possessive apostrophes are removed to prevent confusion on maps where the apostrophe may be confused with a cartographic symbol. While this is generally true, it's not uncommon to find possessive apostrophes in administrative names (such as towns or counties).
<2>The location has been supplied by the Geographic Names Information System - which is maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). While these values should be definitive, we found that accuracy can vary and you should double-check the location if accuracy is required.
<3>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<4>An 'estimated' location is one where we have been given GPS coordinates, but are unable to verify the accuracy of those coordinates. That said, we have some confidence that we have placed the marker near the actual location. A typical reason for being unable to verify a location is that it might be on private property or maybe historic and gone without an obvious trace.
<5>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.
<6>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 Haines City, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<7>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Haines City) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Haines City. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 28.1141, Longitude: -81.6181    









 

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This page was last modified/updated: 28 Mar 2025