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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 Springfield (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 Springfield. 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.

Springfield is located in Hancock County.

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 Hancock County: Baldwin, Glascock, Greene, Putnam, Taliaferro, Warren & Washington.

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

  • Hancock County     (The home county of Springfield)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Springfield, with the one closest to Springfield listed first.
    • Gum Hill
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
      • Gum Hill is located in Hancock County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gum Hill
      • Population from the 2010 Census: 2,146 people
    • Sparta
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
    • Zebulon
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
    • Buckhead ‑ Historic
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southwest)
      • Buckhead is located in Hancock County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Buckhead
      • Estimated population in 2019: 183 people
  • Baldwin County
  • Glascock County
  • Greene County
  • Jefferson County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Springfield, with the one closest to Springfield listed first.
    • Avera
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Omaha Springs
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Omaha Springs is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Omaha Springs
  • McDuffie County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Springfield, with the one closest to Springfield listed first.
    • Thomson
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
    • Columbia Mine ‑ Historic
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
      • Columbia Mine is located in McDuffie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Columbia Mine
      • Estimated population in 2019: 195,769 people
    • Hamilton Crossroads
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
      • Hamilton Crossroads is located in McDuffie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hamilton Crossroads
      • Estimated population in 2019: 1,117 people
    • Boneville
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
  • Morgan County
  • Oglethorpe County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Springfield, with the one closest to Springfield listed first.
    • Maxeys
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Stephens
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Putnam County
  • Taliaferro County
  • Warren County
  • Washington County
  • Wilkes County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Springfield, with the one closest to Springfield listed first.
    • Tyrone
      (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
    • Lundberg
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
      • Lundberg is located in Wilkes County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lundberg
      • Estimated population in 2019: 831 people
    • Rayle
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • Washington
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Centerville
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
    • New Town
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
      • New Town is located in Wilkes County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for New Town

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

Cemeteries Near Springfield ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Springfield.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Springfield, with the one closest to Springfield 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 Springfield in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Springfield.

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

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

Newspapers Published in Springfield ...

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 Springfield.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Springfield, there are papers which were published within 26 miles [41.8 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Springfield.

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 helpful 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 Springfield:

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 Springfield, 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- Springfield) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.