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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 Lake Providence (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 Lake Providence. 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 Lake Providence ...

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.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Lake Providence: Lk. Providence

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 Parishes/Counties ...

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

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

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring parishes/counties 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 south contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring parishes/counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

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

Lake Providence is located in East Carroll Parish and is the Parish Seat.

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 East Carroll Parish: Chicot (AR), Madison, Richland, West Carroll, Issaquena (MS) & Warren (MS).

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

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

Cemeteries Near Lake Providence ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Lake Providence.

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 Lake Providence - one of the links might be able to help.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Lake Providence, with the one closest to Lake Providence 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 Lake Providence had a population of 642 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service. In 2020, Lake Providence had a population of 3,347 people.

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

  • Tallula
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
  • Shelburn
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Shelburn is located in East Carroll Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Shelburn
  • Benham ‑ Historic
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Benham is located in East Carroll Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Benham
  • Brunett ‑ Historic
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
    • Brunett is located in East Carroll Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Brunett
  • Robertdale ‑ Historic
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
    • Robertdale is located in East Carroll Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Robertdale
  • Mayersville
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Mayersville is located in Issaquena County (MS)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mayersville
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 517 people
  • Arcadia ‑ Historic
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
    • Arcadia is located in Issaquena County (MS)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arcadia
  • Pilcher Point
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
    • Pilcher Point is located in East Carroll Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pilcher Point
  • Oak Grove
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
  • Forest
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
  • Onward
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • Blanton
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • Continue List   (15 more) ...
    • Cary
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
      • Cary is located in Sharkey County (MS)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cary
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 264 people
    • Floyd
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Floyd is located in West Carroll Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Floyd
    • Sterling ‑ Historic
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
      • Sterling is located in Chicot County (AR)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sterling

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Lake Providence ...

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 15 newspapers that have been published in the area around Lake Providence.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Lake Providence. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Lake Providence and those printed in the larger area surrounding Lake Providence.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<4> of Lake Providence.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we begin 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 Lake Providence:

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