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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 Olathia (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 Olathia. 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 ...

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 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.

Olathia is located in Douglas 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 Douglas County: Christian, Howell, Ozark, Taney, Texas, Webster & Wright.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Olathia ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Olathia.

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

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

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

  • Shiloh Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
  • Keith Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • Dyer Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Roper Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
  • Macomb Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
  • Findley Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
  • Wallace Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
  • Coy Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
  • Mt. Harmon Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
  • Clever Creek Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Stark Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Ryan Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Continue List   (258 more) ...
    • Calhoun Cemetery
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
    • Deaker Cemetery
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Crain Cemetery
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)

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

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

  • Macomb
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
  • Bryant
    (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
    • Bryant is located in Douglas County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bryant
  • Coldspring
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Coldspring is located in Douglas County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Coldspring
  • Mansfield
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Larissa
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Larissa is located in Douglas County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Larissa
  • Vera Cruz
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
    • Vera Cruz is located in Douglas County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Vera Cruz
  • Ava
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Cedar Gap
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Cedar Gap is located in Wright County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cedar Gap
  • Umpire
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Umpire is located in Wright County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Umpire
  • Girdner
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)
    • Girdner is located in Douglas County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Girdner
  • Arno
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Arno is located in Douglas County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arno
  • Squires
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Squires is located in Douglas County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Squires
  • Continue List   (13 more) ...
    • Hawley ‑ Historic
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
      • Hawley is located in Wright County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hawley
    • Antrim
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
      • Antrim is located in Wright County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Antrim
    • Silverton
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
      • Silverton is located in Douglas County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Silverton

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

Newspapers Published in Olathia ...

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 53 newspapers that have been published in the area around Olathia.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Olathia, there are papers which were published within 24 miles [38.6 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Olathia.

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 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 Olathia:

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 Olathia, 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- Olathia) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.