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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 Olivet (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 Olivet. 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 Olivet ...

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.

Although we can't give a definitive list, hopefully the following will give you a feel for the variations that might occur.

Another variation: Oliret.

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

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.

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.

Olivet is located in Osage County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Osage County: Coffey, Douglas, Franklin, Lyon, Shawnee & Wabaunsee.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Olivet ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Olivet.

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

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

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

  • Alpine Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northwest)
  • Key West Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
  • Malvern Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
  • Arvonia Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
  • Lincoln Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Sutton Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Danish Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Rock Creek Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
  • Pleasant View Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
  • Barclay Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
  • Halls Summit Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
  • South Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
  • Continue List   (140 more) ...
    • Waverly Cemetery
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Lyndon Cemetery
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
    • Bowman & Adgate Cemetery
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)

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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that in 1895, Olivet had a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Olivet had a population of 66 people.

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

  • Melvern
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
    • Melvern is located in Osage County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Melvern
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 368 people
    • Melvern has also been known as:
    • Melvin
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Melvern <1>
  • Arvonia
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
    • Arvonia is located in Osage County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arvonia
  • Lebo
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Waverly
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Barclay
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
  • Halls Summit
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
  • Osage City
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
  • Lyndon Station
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
    • Lyndon Station is located in Osage County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lyndon Station
  • Reading
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
  • Agricola
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
    • Agricola is located in Coffey County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Agricola
  • Peterton
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
  • Quenemo
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
    • Quenemo is located in Osage County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Quenemo
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 372 people
    • Quenemo has also been known as:
    • Quenemo Agency
    • Google driving directions:
    • From your current location to Quenemo
    • From Olivet to Quenemo
  • Continue List   (14 more) ...

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Olivet ...

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 89 newspapers that have been published in the area around Olivet.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Olivet. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Olivet and those printed in the larger area surrounding Olivet.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<3> of Olivet.

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 Olivet:

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