RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Kansas >> Miami County >> Paola >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

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 Paola (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 Paola. 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 southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Paola is located in Miami County and is the County Seat.

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 Miami County: Anderson, Douglas, Franklin, Johnson, Linn, Bates (MO) & Cass (MO).

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

  • Miami County     (The home county of Paola)
  • Anderson County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Paola, with the one closest to Paola listed first.
    • Greeley
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Scipio
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
    • Bush City
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Bush City is located in Anderson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bush City
    • Garnett
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Douglas County
  • Franklin County
  • Johnson County
  • Leavenworth County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Paola, with the one closest to Paola listed first.
    • Linwood
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
      • Linwood is located in Leavenworth County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Linwood
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 433 people
      • Linwood has also been known as:
      • Big Stranger
      • Johnny Cake
      • Journeycake
    • Loring
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
    • Fall Leaf
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Linn County
  • Bates County (MO)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Paola, with the one closest to Paola listed first.
    • Drexel
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
      • Drexel is located in Bates County (MO)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Drexel
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 950 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Drexel <1>
    • Merwin
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
    • Amsterdam
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Burdett
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
    • Amoret
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Adrian
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
    • Worland
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Cass County (MO)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Paola, with the one closest to Paola listed first.
    • West Line
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
    • Cleveland
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Freeman
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
    • Lake Annette
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
      • Lake Annette is located in Cass County (MO)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lake Annette
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 102 people
    • Main City
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
      • Main City is located in Cass County (MO)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Main City
    • Riverview Estates
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Riverview Estates is located in Cass County (MO)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Riverview Estates
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 84 people
      • Riverview Estates has also been known as:
      • Riverview Estates village
    • Loch Lloyd
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
      • Loch Lloyd is located in Cass County (MO)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Loch Lloyd
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 835 people
      • Loch Lloyd has also been known as:
      • Loch Lloyd village
    • Harrelson
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Harrelson is located in Cass County (MO)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Harrelson
    • Peculiar
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Belton
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Raymore
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
      • Raymore is located in Cass County (MO)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Raymore
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 22,532 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Raymore <1>
    • Archie
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
    • Coleman
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Jackson County (MO)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Paola, with the one closest to Paola listed first.
    • Martin City
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
      • Martin City is located in Jackson County (MO)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Martin City
    • Belvidere
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
      • Belvidere is located in Jackson County (MO)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Belvidere
    • New Santa Fe
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
      • New Santa Fe is located in Jackson County (MO)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for New Santa Fe
    • Grandview
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)

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

Cemeteries Near Paola ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Paola.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Paola, with the one closest to Paola 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 Paola had a population of 2,943 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Paola had a population of 5,664 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Paola ...

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 185 newspapers that have been published in the area around Paola.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

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

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 Paola:

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 Paola, 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 obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Paola) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.