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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 Dawson (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 Dawson. 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 Dawson ...

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.

In past government published Postal Guides, Dawson was referred to as Dawson Courthouse.

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

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.

For more information about how community names might have been affected by the Board of Geographic Names (BGN), see our page about Placename Rules.

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 and doctors 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.

Dawson is located in Terrell County and is the County Seat.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Terrell County: Calhoun, Dougherty, Lee, Randolph, Sumter & Webster.

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

  • Terrell County     (The home county of Dawson)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Dawson, with the one closest to Dawson listed first.
    • Yeomans
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
      • Yeomans is located in Terrell County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Yeomans
      • Population from the 2010 Census: 507 people
    • Herod
      (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
      • Herod is located in Terrell County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Herod
      • Population from the 2010 Census: 3,384 people
    • Bronwood
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Sasser
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Olivers Mill
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
      • Olivers Mill is located in Terrell County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Olivers Mill
      • Estimated population in 2019: 230 people
    • Parrott
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Clarks Mill
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
      • Clarks Mill is located in Terrell County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Clarks Mill
      • Estimated population in 2019: 12,637 people
  • Baker County
  • Calhoun County
  • Clay County
  • Dougherty County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Dawson, with the one closest to Dawson listed first.
    • Dawson Heights
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Dawson Heights is located in Dougherty County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dawson Heights
      • Estimated population in 2019: 3,246 people
    • Lake Park
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southeast)
      • Lake Park is located in Dougherty County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lake Park
      • Estimated population in 2019: 1,207 people
    • Relswood Terrace
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Relswood Terrace is located in Dougherty County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Relswood Terrace
      • Estimated population in 2019: 1,079 people
    • Albany
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Eugemar
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
      • Eugemar is located in Dougherty County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Eugemar
      • Estimated population in 2019: 4,367 people
    • Hinds
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
      • Hinds is located in Dougherty County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hinds
      • Estimated population in 2019: 33,273 people
    • West Town
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
      • West Town is located in Dougherty County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for West Town
    • Colonial Place
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Colonial Place is located in Dougherty County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Colonial Place
    • Colonial Village
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Colonial Village is located in Dougherty County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Colonial Village
    • East Towne
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
      • East Towne is located in Dougherty County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for East Towne
    • Elon Village
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Elon Village is located in Dougherty County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Elon Village
    • Turner City
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
      • Turner City is located in Dougherty County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Turner City
    • Tompkins Village
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Tompkins Village is located in Dougherty County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tompkins Village
  • Lee County
  • Marion County
  • Mitchell County
    • De Witt
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Quitman County
  • Randolph County
  • Schley County
  • Stewart County
  • Sumter County
  • Webster County
  • Worth County

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

Cemeteries Near Dawson ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Dawson.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Dawson, with the one closest to Dawson 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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Dawson had a population of 2,284 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Dawson had a population of 4,124 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Dawson ...

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 47 newspapers that have been published in the area around Dawson.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Dawson. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Dawson and those printed in the larger area surrounding Dawson.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 20 miles [32.2 km]<4> of Dawson.

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 websites either 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 Dawson:

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 Dawson, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or 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- Dawson) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.