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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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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 South 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 South 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 South 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.

For example, a typical abbreviation for South Beach: S. Beach

You might be interested in other communities that are also named South Beach. More information can be found on our Tidbits & Trivia Page for South Beach.

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 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.

South Beach is located in Indian River 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 Indian River County: Brevard, Okeechobee, Osceola & Saint Lucie.

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

  • Indian River County     (The home county of South Beach)
    • The following are listed by their distance from South Beach, with the one closest to South Beach listed first.
    • Florida Ridge
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the west)
      • Florida Ridge is located in Indian River County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Florida Ridge
    • Vero Beach
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Gifford
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
      • Gifford is located in Indian River County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gifford
    • Indian River Shores
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
    • Winter Beach
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Wabasso Beach
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
      • Wabasso Beach is located in Indian River County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wabasso Beach
    • Wabasso
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Orchid
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
      • Orchid is located in Indian River County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Orchid
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 455 people
    • North Beach
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
      • North Beach is located in Indian River County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North Beach
    • Sebastian
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Fellsmere
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Roseland
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
  • Brevard County
    • The following are listed by their distance from South Beach, with the one closest to South Beach listed first.
    • Micco
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Barefoot Bay
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
    • Grant
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Grant - Valkaria
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
  • Martin County
    • The following are listed by their distance from South Beach, with the one closest to South Beach listed first.
    • Jensen Beach
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
    • Ocean Breeze
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
      • Ocean Breeze is located in Martin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ocean Breeze
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 413 people
      • Former name for Ocean Breeze:
      • Ocean Breeze Park
    • North River Shores
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
      • North River Shores is located in Martin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North River Shores
    • Rio
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
      • Rio is located in Martin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rio
    • Stuart
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
    • Sewall's Point
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
    • Palm City
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
  • Saint Lucie County
    • The following are listed by their distance from South Beach, with the one closest to South Beach listed first.
    • Saint Lucie Village
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
      • Saint Lucie Village is located in Saint Lucie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Saint Lucie Village
      • Estimated population in 2015: 619 people
    • Lakewood Park
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
      • Lakewood Park is located in Saint Lucie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lakewood Park
    • Saint Lucie
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
      • Saint Lucie is located in Saint Lucie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Saint Lucie
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 648 people
    • Fort Pierce
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
    • Indian River Estates
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
      • Indian River Estates is located in Saint Lucie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Indian River Estates
    • White City
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
      • White City is located in Saint Lucie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for White City
    • Hutchinson Island South
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
    • Port Saint Lucie
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)

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

Cemeteries Near South Beach ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of South 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 South Beach - one of the links might be able to help.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from South Beach, with the one closest to South Beach 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.<3>

While we didn't find South Beach in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of South Beach.

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

  • Sebastian
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Micco
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
  • Valkaria
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Valkaria is located in Brevard County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Valkaria

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

Newspapers Published in South 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 26 newspapers that have been published in the area around South Beach.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of South Beach, there are papers which were published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for South 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 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 South 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 South 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 obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- South Beach) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.