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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 Goodwin (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 Goodwin. 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 doctors and 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.

Goodwin is located in Ellis 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 Ellis County: Beaver, Dewey, Harper, Roger Mills, Woodward, Hemphill (TX) & Lipscomb (TX).

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

  • Ellis County     (The home county of Goodwin)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Goodwin, with the one closest to Goodwin listed first.
    • Shattuck
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Arnett
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Gage
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
    • Catesby
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
      • Catesby is located in Ellis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Catesby
    • Fargo
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Beaver County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Goodwin, with the one closest to Goodwin listed first.
    • Slapout
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
      • Slapout is located in Beaver County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Slapout
    • Logan
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
      • Logan is located in Beaver County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Logan
  • Harper County
    • May
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
      • May is located in Harper County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for May
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 39 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for May <1>
  • Roger Mills County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Goodwin, with the one closest to Goodwin listed first.
    • Durham
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
    • Crawford
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
    • Roll
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)
      • Roll is located in Roger Mills County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Roll
  • Hemphill County (TX)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Goodwin, with the one closest to Goodwin listed first.
    • Glazier
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
      • Glazier is located in Hemphill County (TX)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Glazier
    • Clear Creek
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Lipscomb County (TX)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Goodwin, with the one closest to Goodwin listed first.
    • Higgins
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Higgins is located in Lipscomb County (TX)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Higgins
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 378 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Higgins <1>
    • Lipscomb
      (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
    • Follett
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
      • Follett is located in Lipscomb County (TX)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Follett
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 424 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Follett <1>
    • Locust Grove
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
      • Locust Grove is located in Lipscomb County (TX)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Locust Grove
    • Darrouzett
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Timms City ‑ Historic
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Timms City is located in Lipscomb County (TX)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Timms City

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

Cemeteries Near Goodwin ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Goodwin.

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

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

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

  • Ebenezer Baptist Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Lutheran Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lutheran Cemetery
    • The Lutheran Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Christ Lutheran Cemetery
    • St. Pauls Lutheran Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #98158 <2>
  • Emmons Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Goodwin-Emmons Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
  • Shattuck Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
  • Higgins Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Allmon Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
  • Debolt Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the east)
  • Gage Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Grand Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Mt. Hope Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
  • Continue List   (35 more) ...

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>

While we didn't find Goodwin in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Goodwin.

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

  • Higgins
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Higgins is located in Lipscomb County (TX)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Higgins
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 378 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Higgins <1>
  • Lipscomb
    (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
  • Glazier
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Glazier is located in Hemphill County (TX)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Glazier
  • Timms City ‑ Historic
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Timms City is located in Lipscomb County (TX)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Timms City

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

Newspapers Published in Goodwin ...

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 37 newspapers that have been published in the area around Goodwin.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Goodwin, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Goodwin.

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 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 Goodwin:

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 Goodwin, 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 obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Goodwin) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.