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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 Belcher (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 Belcher. 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/Parishes ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring counties/parishes.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the northwest corner of their home parish. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next parish to the west. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the parish to the north.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring counties/parishes instead of the parish in which they lived:  their home parish contained property and probate records; the parish to the west contained birth and death records; the parish to the north contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring counties/parishes, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Belcher is located in Caddo Parish.

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

The following parishes adjoin and form the boundaries of Caddo Parish: Lafayette (AR), Miller (AR), Bossier, De Soto, Red River, Cass (TX), Harrison (TX), Marion (TX) & Panola (TX).

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

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

Cemeteries Near Belcher ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Belcher.

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

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

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

  • Carolina Bluff Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the east)
  • Union Chapel Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northwest)
  • Dickson Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
  • Prairie Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
  • Cottage Grove Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
  • Egypt Hill Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
  • Rang Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
  • Macedonia Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • New Egypt Hill Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Benton Community Club Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
  • Dove Dale Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
  • High Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Continue List   (167 more) ...
    • Hosston Cemetery
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
    • Old Red River Cemetery
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Raymond Cemetery
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)

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 Belcher in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Belcher.

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

  • Benton
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Alden Bridge
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Hughes
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
    • Hughes is located in Bossier Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hughes
  • Mooringsport
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Black Bayou ‑ Historic
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
    • Black Bayou is located in Caddo Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Black Bayou
  • Collinsburg
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Collinsburg is located in Bossier Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Collinsburg
  • Blanchard
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
  • Vanceville
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Vanceville is located in Bossier Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Vanceville
  • Rocky Mount
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
    • Rocky Mount is located in Bossier Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rocky Mount
  • Brownlee
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
    • Brownlee is located in Bossier Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Brownlee
  • Plain Dealing
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Midway
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
    • Midway is located in Bossier Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Midway
  • Continue List   (15 more) ...
    • Latex
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Latex is located in Caddo Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Latex
    • Longwood
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Garfield ‑ Historic
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Garfield is located in Caddo Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Garfield

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

Newspapers Published in Belcher ...

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 75 newspapers that have been published in the area around Belcher.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Belcher, there are papers which were published within 18 miles [29 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Belcher.

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 Belcher:

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 Belcher, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<3>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- Belcher) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.