RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Oklahoma >> Cleveland County >> Norman >> 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 Norman (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 Norman. 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 southeast 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 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 east 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.

Norman is located in Cleveland County and is the County Seat.

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 Cleveland County: Canadian, Grady, McClain, Oklahoma & Pottawatomie.

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

  • Cleveland County     (The home county of Norman)
  • Canadian County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Norman, with the one closest to Norman listed first.
    • Mustang
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Yukon
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Yukon is located in Canadian County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Yukon
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 28,793 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Yukon <1>
    • Union City
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Garvin County
  • Grady County
  • McClain County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Norman, with the one closest to Norman listed first.
    • Goldsby
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
    • Newcastle
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
    • Cole
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Cole is located in McClain County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cole
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 599 people
    • Washington
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
    • Blanchard
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
    • Purcell
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
    • Dibble
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Criner
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
    • Payne
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
    • Wayne
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
    • Rosedale
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
      • Rosedale is located in McClain County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rosedale
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 73 people
  • Oklahoma County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Norman, with the one closest to Norman listed first.
    • Valley Brook
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
      • Valley Brook is located in Oklahoma County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Valley Brook
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 768 people
    • Capitol Hill
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
    • Del City
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
    • Smith Village
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
      • Smith Village is located in Oklahoma County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Smith Village
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 80 people
    • Midway Village
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
      • Midway Village is located in Oklahoma County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Midway Village
    • Wheatland
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Midwest City
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
    • Oklahoma City
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
    • Woods
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Nicoma Park
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
    • Forest Park
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
      • Forest Park is located in Oklahoma County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Forest Park
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,071 people
    • Choctaw
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Newalla
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Pottawatomie County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Norman, with the one closest to Norman listed first.
    • Pink
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
      • Pink is located in Pottawatomie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pink
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,187 people
    • Tribbey
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
      • Tribbey is located in Pottawatomie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tribbey
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 422 people
    • Bethel Acres
      (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
      • Bethel Acres is located in Pottawatomie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bethel Acres
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 3,262 people
    • McLoud
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
      • McLoud is located in Pottawatomie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for McLoud
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 4,800 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for McLoud <1>
    • Macomb
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
      • Macomb is located in Pottawatomie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Macomb
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 33 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Macomb <1>
    • Dale
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Brooksville
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
      • Brooksville is located in Pottawatomie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Brooksville
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 57 people
    • Tecumseh
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
    • Wanette
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Shawnee
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)

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

Cemeteries Near Norman ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Norman.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Norman, with the one closest to Norman 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.<2>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Norman had a population of 787 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Norman had a population of 125,762 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Norman ...

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 65 newspapers that have been published in the area around Norman.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Norman. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Norman and those printed in the larger area surrounding Norman.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<3> of Norman.

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 Norman:

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