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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Mississippi >> Wilkinson County >> Whitaker >> 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 Whitaker (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 Whitaker. 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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most 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 parishes/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 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.

Whitaker is located in Wilkinson 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 Wilkinson County: Concordia (LA), East Feliciana (LA), West Feliciana (LA), Adams, Amite & Franklin.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Whitaker ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Whitaker.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Whitaker, with the one closest to Whitaker 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.<3>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that in 1895, Whitaker had a post office and no railroad service.

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

  • Norwood
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
    • Norwood is located in East Feliciana Parish (LA)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Norwood
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 281 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Norwood <1>
  • Centreville
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Wilson
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
  • Ariel
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
    • Ariel is located in Amite County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ariel
  • Tatum
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
    • Tatum is located in Amite County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tatum
  • Olio
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
    • Olio is located in Amite County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Olio
  • Woodland
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Berwick
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Berwick is located in Amite County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Berwick
  • Turnbull
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
  • Clinton
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Clinton is located in East Feliciana Parish (LA)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Clinton
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,486 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Clinton <1>
  • Gloster
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
  • Woodville
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Continue List   (17 more) ...
    • Laurel Hill
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
      • Laurel Hill is located in West Feliciana Parish (LA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Laurel Hill
    • Jackson
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
      • Jackson is located in East Feliciana Parish (LA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Jackson
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 3,707 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Jackson <1>
    • Kents Store ‑ Historic
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Kents Store is located in East Feliciana Parish (LA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kents Store

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

Newspapers Published in Whitaker ...

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 Whitaker.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Whitaker, there are papers which were published within 26 miles [41.8 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Whitaker.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we begin 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 Whitaker:

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>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 Whitaker, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>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 drawn from Point A (ie- Whitaker) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.