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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 Melba (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 Melba. 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 northwest 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 north.

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 north 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.

Melba is located in Jefferson Davis County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Jefferson Davis County: Covington, Lamar, Lawrence, Marion & Simpson.

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

  • Jefferson Davis County     (The home county of Melba)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Melba, with the one closest to Melba listed first.
    • Bassfield
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Bassfield is located in Jefferson Davis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bassfield
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 206 people
    • Prentiss
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Oak Vale
      (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
  • Covington County
  • Forrest County
  • Jones County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Melba, with the one closest to Melba listed first.
    • Ellisville
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Soso
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Lamar County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Melba, with the one closest to Melba listed first.
    • Sumrall
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
    • West Hattiesburg
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southeast)
      • West Hattiesburg is located in Lamar County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for West Hattiesburg
    • Purvis
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Wells Town
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
      • Wells Town is located in Lamar County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wells Town
  • Lawrence County
  • Marion County
  • Simpson County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Melba, with the one closest to Melba listed first.
    • Jaynesville
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Coats
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
    • Magee
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
      • Magee is located in Simpson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Magee
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 4,094 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Magee <1>
  • Smith County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Melba, with the one closest to Melba listed first.
    • Mize
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
    • Taylorsville
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Walthall County

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

Cemeteries Near Melba ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Melba.

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

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

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

  • Melba Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • Lott Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
  • Old Melba Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • McDonald Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Williamson Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Williamson Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the south)
  • Old Broom Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southwest)
  • Lowland Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the west)
  • Blackburn - Carter Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
  • Mt. Gilead Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Hickory Grove Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
  • Fairview Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Continue List   (554 more) ...
    • Jones Cemetery
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Taylor Cemetery
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
    • Clark Cemetery
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)

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

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

  • Williamsburg
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
  • Moscos
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Moscos is located in Covington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Moscos
  • Goss
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Ora
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
    • Ora is located in Covington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ora
  • Columbia
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Oak Vale
    (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
  • Eastabuchie
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
    • Eastabuchie is located in Forrest County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Eastabuchie
  • Moselle
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
    • Moselle is located in Jones County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Moselle
  • Mount Olive
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Mount Olive is located in Covington County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mount Olive
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 896 people
  • Hattiesburg
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
  • Tilton
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
  • Jaynesville
    (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
  • Continue List   (12 more) ...
    • Silver Creek
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
    • Pickwick
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
      • Pickwick is located in Marion County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pickwick
    • Spring Cottage
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
      • Spring Cottage is located in Marion County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Spring Cottage

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

Newspapers Published in Melba ...

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 33 newspapers that have been published in the area around Melba.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Melba, there are papers which were published within 22 miles [35.4 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Melba.

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 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 Melba:

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