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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 Wilson (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 Wilson. 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 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 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 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.

Wilson is located in East Feliciana 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 East Feliciana Parish: East Baton Rouge, Saint Helena, West Feliciana, Amite (MS) & Wilkinson (MS).

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

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

Cemeteries Near Wilson ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Wilson.

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

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

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

  • Easter Star Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • Smith Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • Singletar Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • St. Johns Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • Sandel Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • Rilgrims Rest Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Scott Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southwest)
  • Dubose Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
  • East Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
  • Springhill Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
  • Carruth Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
  • Norwood Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
  • Continue List   (546 more) ...
    • Pisgah Cemetery
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northwest)
    • McQueen Cemetery
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Dawson Cemetery
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)

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.<4>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Wilson had a population of 281 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Wilson had a population of 546 people.

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

  • Norwood
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
    • Norwood is located in East Feliciana Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Norwood
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 281 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Norwood <1>
  • Clinton
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Clinton is located in East Feliciana Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Clinton
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,486 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Clinton <1>
  • Whitaker
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
  • Jackson
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Jackson is located in East Feliciana Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jackson
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 3,707 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Jackson <1>
  • Ethel
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
  • Woodland
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
  • Bells Store ‑ Historic
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
    • Bells Store is located in East Feliciana Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bells Store
  • Kents Store ‑ Historic
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
    • Kents Store is located in East Feliciana Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kents Store
  • Centreville
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
  • Olive Branch
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)
    • Olive Branch is located in East Feliciana Parish
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Olive Branch
  • Turnbull
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Slaughter
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
  • Continue List   (15 more) ...
    • Laurel Hill
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
      • Laurel Hill is located in West Feliciana Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Laurel Hill
    • Converse ‑ Historic
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
      • Converse is located in West Feliciana Parish
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Converse
    • Blairstown
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Wilson ...

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 Wilson.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Wilson. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Wilson and those printed in the larger area surrounding Wilson.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 23 miles [37 km]<2> of Wilson.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These 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 Wilson:

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>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or 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- Wilson) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<3>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.
<4>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 Wilson, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.