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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 Blackwater (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 Blackwater. 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 Blackwater ...

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.

Another variation: Black Water.

You might be interested in other communities that are also named Blackwater. More information can be found on our Tidbits & Trivia Page for Blackwater.

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 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 southwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next county to the west. 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 west 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.

Blackwater is located in Cooper County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Cooper County: Boone, Howard, Moniteau, Morgan, Pettis & Saline.

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

  • Cooper County     (The home county of Blackwater)
  • Boone County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Blackwater, with the one closest to Blackwater listed first.
    • Rocheport
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
    • Huntsdale
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
      • Huntsdale is located in Boone County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Huntsdale
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 35 people
    • McBaine
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
      • McBaine is located in Boone County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for McBaine
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 12 people
    • Harrisburg
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
  • Carroll County
    • De Witt
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
      • De Witt is located in Carroll County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for De Witt
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 113 people
  • Chariton County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Blackwater, with the one closest to Blackwater listed first.
    • Lewis Mill
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
    • Namrash ‑ Historic
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
      • Namrash is located in Chariton County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Namrash
    • Oil City
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
      • Oil City is located in Chariton County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oil City
    • Dalton
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
      • Dalton is located in Chariton County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dalton
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 16 people
    • Grand River City ‑ Historic
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
      • Grand River City is located in Chariton County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grand River City
    • Missouri Village
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
      • Missouri Village is located in Chariton County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Missouri Village
  • Howard County
  • Johnson County
  • Lafayette County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Blackwater, with the one closest to Blackwater listed first.
    • Emma
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the west)
    • Alma
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
      • Alma is located in Lafayette County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alma
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 385 people
    • Concordia
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
  • Moniteau County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Blackwater, with the one closest to Blackwater listed first.
    • Tipton
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Clarksburg
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
      • Clarksburg is located in Moniteau County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Clarksburg
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 346 people
    • Lupus
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
      • Lupus is located in Moniteau County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lupus
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 34 people
    • Fortuna
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
      • Fortuna is located in Moniteau County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fortuna
  • Morgan County
  • Pettis County
  • Randolph County
  • Saline County

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

Cemeteries Near Blackwater ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Blackwater.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Blackwater, with the one closest to Blackwater 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.<4>

While we didn't find Blackwater in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Blackwater.

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

  • Nelson
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northwest)
  • Ridge Prairie
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Ridge Prairie is located in Saline County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ridge Prairie
  • Lamine
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Arrow Rock
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
  • Postal
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Postal is located in Pettis County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Postal
  • Napton
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Hardeman
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
    • Hardeman is located in Saline County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hardeman
  • Pilot Grove
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
  • Lisbon
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
  • Harriston
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
  • Boonesboro
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Wanamaker ‑ Historic
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
    • Wanamaker is located in Saline County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wanamaker
  • Continue List   (16 more) ...

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Blackwater ...

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 118 newspapers that have been published in the area around Blackwater.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Blackwater. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Blackwater and those printed in the larger area surrounding Blackwater.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<3> of Blackwater.

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 Blackwater:

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