RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Mississippi >> Panola County >> Sardis >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

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 Sardis (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 Sardis. 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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Sardis is located in Panola County and is the County Seat.

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 Panola County: Lafayette, Quitman, Tallahatchie, Tate, Tunica & Yalobusha.

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

  • Panola County     (The home county of Sardis)
  • Coahoma County
  • DeSoto County
  • Lafayette County
  • Marshall County
  • Quitman County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Sardis, with the one closest to Sardis listed first.
    • Sledge
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the west)
    • Bobo
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)
    • Falcon
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
      • Falcon is located in Quitman County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Falcon
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 142 people
    • Crowder
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
      • Crowder is located in Quitman County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Crowder
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 645 people
    • Marks
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
      • Marks is located in Quitman County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Marks
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,408 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Marks <1>
    • Lambert
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Yarbrough
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Tallahatchie County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Sardis, with the one closest to Sardis listed first.
    • Crevi ‑ Historic
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
      • Crevi is located in Tallahatchie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Crevi
    • Charleston
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
  • Tate County
  • Tunica County
  • Yalobusha County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Sardis, with the one closest to Sardis listed first.
    • Water Valley
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Oakland
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
    • Velma
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)

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

Cemeteries Near Sardis ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Sardis.

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

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

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

  • Rose Hill Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the north)
  • Belmont Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
  • Pleasant Green Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the east)
  • McIver Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the west)
  • Davis Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
  • Bishop Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
  • Hebron Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
  • Wesley Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
  • Walton Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
  • Cistern Hill Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
  • Friendship Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
  • Rock Hill Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
  • Continue List   (311 more) ...
    • Como Cemetery
      (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
    • Little Cemetery
      (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
    • Union Cemetery
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)

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 Sardis had a population of 1,944 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Sardis had a population of 1,529 people.

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

  • Como
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
  • Terza
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Lespedeza
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
    • Lespedeza is located in Panola County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lespedeza
  • Batesville
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
  • Pleasant Grove
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
    • Pleasant Grove is located in Panola County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pleasant Grove
  • Central Academy
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Central Academy is located in Panola County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Central Academy
  • Wallace
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
    • Wallace is located in Panola County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wallace
  • Glenville
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Glenville is located in Panola County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Glenville
  • Looxahoma
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
  • Senatobia
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
  • Longtown
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Chapeltown
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Continue List   (15 more) ...
    • Courtland
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
    • Eureka Springs
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
      • Eureka Springs is located in Panola County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Eureka Springs
    • Pope
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
      • Pope is located in Panola County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pope
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 245 people

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Sardis ...

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 66 newspapers that have been published in the area around Sardis.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Sardis. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Sardis and those printed in the larger area surrounding Sardis.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<3> of Sardis.

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 Sardis:

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 Sardis, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Sardis) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.