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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 Cloud Chief (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 Cloud Chief. 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.

Cloud Chief is located in Washita County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Washita County: Beckham, Caddo, Custer & Kiowa.

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

  • Washita County     (The home county of Cloud Chief)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Cloud Chief, with the one closest to Cloud Chief listed first.
    • New Cordell
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
      • New Cordell is located in Washita County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for New Cordell
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,708 people
      • New Cordell has also been known as:
      • Cordell
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for New Cordell <1>
    • Corn
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
      • Corn is located in Washita County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Corn
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 467 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Corn <1>
    • Colony
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Bessie
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Rocky
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Dill City
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
    • Burns Flat
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
    • Sentinel
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
    • Foss
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Foss is located in Washita County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Foss
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 146 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Foss <1>
    • Canute
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
  • Caddo County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Cloud Chief, with the one closest to Cloud Chief listed first.
    • Eakly
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
    • Carnegie
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Swan Lake
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
      • Swan Lake is located in Caddo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Swan Lake
    • Sickles
      (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
      • Sickles is located in Caddo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sickles
    • Albert
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
    • Alden
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Alden is located in Caddo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alden
    • Hydro
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Fort Cobb
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Lookeba
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
    • Binger
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
    • Washita
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
  • Custer County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Cloud Chief, with the one closest to Cloud Chief listed first.
    • Clinton
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
    • Weatherford
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
    • Arapaho
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Custer City
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
  • Kiowa County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Cloud Chief, with the one closest to Cloud Chief listed first.
    • Mountain View
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Gotebo
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)
    • Hobart
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Cooperton
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
      • Cooperton is located in Kiowa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cooperton
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 15 people
    • Roosevelt
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
    • Lone Wolf
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)

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

Cemeteries Near Cloud Chief ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Cloud Chief.

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 Cloud Chief - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Cloud Chief Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • Sharon Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
  • Shelley Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
  • Sichar Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Odessa Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
  • Fesser Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
  • Sappington Chapel Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
  • Van Dyke Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
  • Pleasant View Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Cordell Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Strickland Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
  • Elm Flat Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Continue List   (108 more) ...
    • Red Top Cemetery
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
    • Herold Mennonite Cemetery
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
    • Brethren Cemetery
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)

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 in 1895, Cloud Chief had no post office or railroad service.

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

  • New Cordell
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
    • New Cordell is located in Washita County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for New Cordell
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,708 people
    • New Cordell has also been known as:
    • Cordell
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for New Cordell <1>
  • Rainy ‑ Historic
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Rainy is located in Washita County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rainy
  • Weatherford
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
  • Arapaho
    (23 miles [37 km] to the north)

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Cloud Chief ...

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 109 newspapers that have been published in the area around Cloud Chief.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Cloud Chief. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Cloud Chief and those printed in the larger area surrounding Cloud Chief.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<3> of Cloud Chief.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first turn to the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These professional and volunteer 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 Cloud Chief:

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