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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 Sicily Island (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 Sicily Island. 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 Sicily Island ...

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 Sicily Island: Sicily Is. (in Canada, 'Isld.' is the more common abbreviation.)

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 ...

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

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the southeast corner of their home parish. During their lives, most hospitals were in the next parish to the east. 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 instead of the parish in which they lived:  their home parish contained property and probate records; the parish to the east contained birth and death records; the parish to the south contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring parishes, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

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

Sicily Island is located in Catahoula 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 Catahoula Parish: Avoyelles, Caldwell, Concordia, Franklin, La Salle & Tensas.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Sicily Island ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Sicily Island.

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 Sicily Island - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Pilgrim Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the north)
  • Highland Park Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Mason Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
  • Norris Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
  • Peck Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
  • Old Pine Hill Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
  • Peniston Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
  • Old Salem Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
  • Sicily Island Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
  • New Light Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Hope Will Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
  • New Salem Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
  • Continue List   (236 more) ...
    • Greenville Cemetery
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • New Zion Cemetery
      (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
    • New Zion Cemetery
      (5 miles [8 km] to the north)

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 Sicily Island had a population of 52 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service. In 2020, Sicily Island had a population of 438 people.

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

  • Leland
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Leland is located in Catahoula Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Leland
  • Greenville
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Greenville is located in Catahoula Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Greenville
  • Wildwood
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Holly Grove
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Holly Grove is located in Franklin Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Holly Grove
  • Harrisonburg
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Highland
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
  • Oakley
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
    • Oakley is located in Franklin Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oakley
  • Clayton
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Enterprise
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
  • Gilbert
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
  • Chevey Chase
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
  • Frogmore
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
    • Frogmore is located in Concordia Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Frogmore
  • Continue List   (14 more) ...
    • Turtle Lake ‑ Historic
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
      • Turtle Lake is located in Concordia Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Turtle Lake
    • Waterproof
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
    • Goldman
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
      • Goldman is located in Tensas Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Goldman

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

Newspapers Published in Sicily Island ...

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 21 newspapers that have been published in the area around Sicily Island.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Sicily Island, 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 Sicily Island.

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 websites either 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 Sicily Island:

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 Sicily Island, 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 from Point A (ie- Sicily Island) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.