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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 Plato (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 Plato. 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.

Plato is located in LaGrange County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of LaGrange County: Elkhart, Noble, Steuben, Branch (MI) & Saint Joseph (MI).

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

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

Cemeteries Near Plato ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Plato.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Plato, with the one closest to Plato listed first.

  • Rogers Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the east)
  • Oak Hill Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
  • Brushy Chapel Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
  • Mongo Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Greenwood Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
  • Woodruff Memorial Gardens Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
  • K of P Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Ontario Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
  • Hoagland Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
  • McCoy Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
  • Reed Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
  • East Springfield United Methodist Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
  • Continue List   (302 more) ...
    • Eagle Cemetery
      (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
    • County Farm Cemetery
      (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
    • Jordon Cemetery
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)

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.<2>

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

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

  • Valentine
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Woodruff
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
    • Woodruff is located in LaGrange County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Woodruff
  • Brushy Prairie
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
  • Mongo
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Ontario
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Ontario is located in LaGrange County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ontario
  • LaGrange
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
  • Mount Pisgah
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Mount Pisgah is located in LaGrange County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mount Pisgah
  • Brighton
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
  • Wolcottville
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
  • South Milford
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
    • South Milford is located in LaGrange County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for South Milford
  • Greenfield Mills
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
  • Fawn River
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
  • Continue List   (13 more) ...
    • Rome City
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
    • Turkey Creek
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
      • Turkey Creek is located in Steuben County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Turkey Creek
    • Salem Center
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
      • Salem Center is located in Steuben County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Salem Center

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

Newspapers Published in Plato ...

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 144 newspapers that have been published in the area around Plato.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Plato, there are papers which were published within 23 miles [37 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Plato.

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 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 Plato:

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>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 Plato, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Plato) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.