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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 Sandersville (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 Sandersville. 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 Sandersville ...

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, Sandersville was referred to as Sandersville Courthouse.

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

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 southwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and 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.

Sandersville is located in Washington 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 Washington County: Baldwin, Glascock, Hancock, Jefferson, Johnson, Warren & Wilkinson.

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

  • Washington County     (The home county of Sandersville)
  • Baldwin County
  • Emanuel County
  • Glascock County
  • Hancock County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Sandersville, with the one closest to Sandersville listed first.
    • Zebulon
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Sparta
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Buckhead ‑ Historic
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Buckhead is located in Hancock County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Buckhead
      • Estimated population in 2019: 183 people
  • Jefferson County
  • Johnson County
  • Laurens County
  • Putnam County
    • Oconee Springs
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
      • Oconee Springs is located in Putnam County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oconee Springs
      • Estimated population in 2019: 243 people
  • Warren County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Sandersville, with the one closest to Sandersville listed first.
    • Jewell
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Warrenton
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
  • Wilkinson County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Sandersville, with the one closest to Sandersville listed first.
    • Beech Hill
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Beech Hill is located in Wilkinson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Beech Hill
    • Toomsboro
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Irwinton
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
    • McIntyre
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Dedrich
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
      • Dedrich is located in Wilkinson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dedrich
      • Population from the 2010 Census: 2,146 people
    • Ivey
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)
      • Ivey is located in Wilkinson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ivey
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 899 people

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

Cemeteries Near Sandersville ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Sandersville.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Sandersville, with the one closest to Sandersville 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 Sandersville had a population of 1,760 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Sandersville had a population of 5,275 people.

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

  • Tennille
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
  • Sun Hill
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Sun Hill is located in Washington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sun Hill
  • Warthen
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
  • Riddleville
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Riddleville is located in Washington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Riddleville
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 86 people
  • Downs
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Downs is located in Washington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Downs
  • Deepstep
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
  • Lindsey ‑ Historic
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
    • Lindsey is located in Washington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lindsey
  • Hebron
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
    • Hebron is located in Washington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hebron
  • Harrison
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Oconee
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Chalker ‑ Historic
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
    • Chalker is located in Washington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Chalker
  • Linton
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Linton is located in Hancock County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Linton
  • Continue List   (15 more) ...
    • Beech Hill
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Beech Hill is located in Wilkinson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Beech Hill
    • Agricola
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
      • Agricola is located in Glascock County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Agricola
    • Pringle
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Pringle is located in Washington County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pringle

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Sandersville ...

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 63 newspapers that have been published in the area around Sandersville.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Sandersville. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Sandersville and those printed in the larger area surrounding Sandersville.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4> of Sandersville.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we like to 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 Sandersville:

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 Sandersville, 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' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Sandersville) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.