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The Commemorative Quarter for Florida





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 Islamorada (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 Islamorada. 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 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.

Islamorada is located in Monroe 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 Monroe County: Collier & Miami-Dade.

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

  • Monroe County     (The home county of Islamorada)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Islamorada, with the one closest to Islamorada listed first.
    • Plantation Key
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Plantation Key have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Plantation Key
      • Plantation Key is located in Monroe County
    • Matecumbe Key
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Tavernier
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Sunset Point
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
    • Layton
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Layton have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Layton
      • Layton is located in Monroe County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 180 people
    • Long Key
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Key Largo
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Conch Key
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)
    • Anglers Park
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Anglers Park
      • Anglers Park is located in Monroe County
    • Duck Key
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southwest)
    • Flamingo
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
    • Key Colony Beach
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Marathon Shores
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Islamorada ...

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 5 newspapers that have been published in the area around Islamorada.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Islamorada. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Islamorada and those printed in the larger area surrounding Islamorada.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 9 miles [14.5 km]<3> of Islamorada.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first turn to the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These professional and volunteer 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 Islamorada:

Cemeteries Near Islamorada ...

We're sorry, but we don't know of any cemeteries in the area around Islamorada.

This is a new section of our Gazetteer and we're still collecting data about cemeteries and their location. If you know of a cemetery that should be included, please let us know.

We are looking for information such as the name of the cemetery, its GPS location, whether the cemetery is still in use or if it is historic (ie- defunct, abandoned,  etc.). If it applies, we would also like to learn of any past or alternate names that the cemetery has been known by.

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

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

The official website for Islamorada: www.islamorada.fl.us/

The official website for Monroe County: www.co.monroe.fl.us/

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

Footnotes ...

<1>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.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Islamorada) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Islamorada. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 24.9242, Longitude: -80.6283    









 

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If you've found an error or have additional information that you would like to share, please don't hesitate to write: Click here to contact us.

This page was last modified/updated: 07 Apr 2024