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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 Varina (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 Varina. 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 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.

Varina is located in Pocahontas County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Pocahontas County: Buena Vista, Calhoun, Clay, Humboldt, Kossuth, Palo Alto, Sac & Webster.

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

  • Pocahontas County     (The home county of Varina)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Varina, with the one closest to Varina listed first.
    • Fonda
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Laurens
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
    • Pocahontas
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
    • Palmer
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
    • Havelock
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Plover
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Rolfe
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Buena Vista County
  • Calhoun County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Varina, with the one closest to Varina listed first.
    • Pomeroy
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
    • Jolley
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Lytton
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
      • Lytton is located in Calhoun County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lytton
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 285 people
    • Twin Lakes
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southeast)
    • Manson
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Rockwell City
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Sherwood
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Yetter
      (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
      • Yetter is located in Calhoun County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Yetter
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 31 people
    • Knierim
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
      • Knierim is located in Calhoun County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Knierim
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 57 people
    • Lake City
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
    • Rands
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Rinard
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)
      • Rinard is located in Calhoun County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rinard
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 48 people
  • Cherokee County
    • Aurelia
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the west)
  • Clay County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Varina, with the one closest to Varina listed first.
    • Webb
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
    • Cornell
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
    • Gillett Grove
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • Greenville
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Peterson
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Rossie
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Rossie is located in Clay County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rossie
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 67 people
  • Humboldt County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Varina, with the one closest to Varina listed first.
    • Gilmore City
      (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
    • Pioneer
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
      • Pioneer is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pioneer
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 22 people
    • Bradgate
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
      • Bradgate is located in Humboldt County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bradgate
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 84 people
  • Ida County
  • Palo Alto County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Varina, with the one closest to Varina listed first.
    • Mallard
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Curlew
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Ayrshire
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
  • Sac County
  • Webster County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Varina, with the one closest to Varina listed first.
    • Clare
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
      • Clare is located in Webster County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Clare
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 133 people
    • Barnum
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)

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

Cemeteries Near Varina ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Varina.

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

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

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

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

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

Newspapers Published in Varina ...

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 105 newspapers that have been published in the area around Varina.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Varina, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Varina.

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 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 Varina:

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 Varina, 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 from Point A (ie- Varina) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.