RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

So far, we found very little information about Okeelanta. The little that we've found leads us believe that the community is historic.<1>

We've added Okeelanta to our Gazetteer with the hope that we can develop more information. If you can help us with Okeelanta, please Contact Us.

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 Okeelanta (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 Okeelanta. 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.

Although our information shows that the community of Okeelanta is historic, it would have been located within present day Palm Beach 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 Palm Beach County: Broward, Glades, Hendry, Martin & Okeechobee.

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

  • Palm Beach County     (The home county of Okeelanta)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Okeelanta, with the one closest to Okeelanta listed first.
    • South Bay
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
    • Belle Glade Camp
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Belle Glade
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
    • Bean City
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Bean City. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bean City
      • Bean City is located in Palm Beach County
      • Google driving directions:
      • From your current location to Bean City
      • From Okeelanta to Bean City
    • Chosen ‑ Historic
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Chosen. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Chosen
      • Chosen is located in Palm Beach County
      • Google driving directions:
      • From your current location to Chosen
      • From Okeelanta to Chosen
    • Torry Island ‑ Historic
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
    • Lake Harbor
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
    • Ritta ‑ Historic
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Ritta. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ritta
      • Ritta is located in Palm Beach County
      • Ritta has also been known as:
      • Ritta Island
      • Google driving directions:
      • From your current location to Ritta
      • From Okeelanta to Ritta
    • Kraemer ‑ Historic
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Kraemer. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kraemer
      • Kraemer is located in Palm Beach County
      • Google driving directions:
      • From your current location to Kraemer
      • From Okeelanta to Kraemer
    • Shawano ‑ Historic
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Shawano. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Shawano
      • Shawano is located in Palm Beach County
      • Shawano has also been known as:
      • Browns Farm
      • Shawano Village
      • Google driving directions:
      • From your current location to Shawano
      • From Okeelanta to Shawano
    • Fremd Village - Padgett Island
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
    • Fremd Village
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Fremd Village have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fremd Village
      • Fremd Village is located in Palm Beach County
  • Glades County
  • Hendry County
  • Martin County

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

Cemeteries Near Okeelanta ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Okeelanta.

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

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

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

  • Foreverglades Mausoleum Gardens
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Foreverglades Mausoleum Gardens
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Foreverglades Mausoleum Gardens have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Ridgelawn Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Ridgelawn Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Ridgelawn Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Port Mayaca Cemetery
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)

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

Newspapers Published in Okeelanta ...

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 14 newspapers that have been published in the area around Okeelanta.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Okeelanta, there are papers which were published within 28 miles [45.1 km]. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Okeelanta.

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 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 Okeelanta:

Footnotes ...

<1>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 Okeelanta, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>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.
<4>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.
<5>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- Okeelanta) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Okeelanta. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 26.6099, Longitude: -80.7116       In this case, the coordinates for Okeelanta have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<6>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.