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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 Wayne (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 Wayne. 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 northwest 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 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 west 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.

Wayne is located in McClain 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 McClain County: Cleveland, Garvin, Grady, Pontotoc & Pottawatomie.

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

  • McClain County     (The home county of Wayne)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Wayne, with the one closest to Wayne listed first.
    • Rosedale
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
      • Rosedale is located in McClain County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rosedale
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 73 people
    • Purcell
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Payne
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the west)
    • Washington
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
    • Criner
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
    • Byars
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
    • Goldsby
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Cole
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northwest)
      • Cole is located in McClain County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cole
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 599 people
    • Dibble
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Blanchard
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Newcastle
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
  • Cleveland County
  • Garvin County
  • Grady County
  • Murray County
  • Pontotoc County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Wayne, with the one closest to Wayne listed first.
    • Oil Center
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
    • Bebee
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
  • Pottawatomie County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Wayne, with the one closest to Wayne listed first.
    • Wanette
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
    • Tribbey
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Tribbey is located in Pottawatomie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tribbey
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 422 people
    • Asher
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
      • Asher is located in Pottawatomie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Asher
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 418 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Asher <1>
    • Macomb
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
      • 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>
    • Pink
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Pink is located in Pottawatomie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pink
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,187 people
    • Brooksville
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
      • Brooksville is located in Pottawatomie County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Brooksville
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 57 people
    • Saint Louis
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Sacred Heart
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)

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

Cemeteries Near Wayne ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Wayne.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Wayne, with the one closest to Wayne 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>

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

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

  • Lexington
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
  • Eason
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
    • Eason is located in Pottawatomie County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Eason
  • Noble
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
  • Etowah
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Etowah is located in Cleveland County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Etowah
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 93 people
  • Denver
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Denver is located in Cleveland County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Denver
  • Norman
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
  • Anderson
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Anderson is located in Pottawatomie County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Anderson
  • Franklin
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
  • Romulus
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Romulus is located in Pottawatomie County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Romulus
  • Newcastle
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
  • Stella
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
    • Stella is located in Cleveland County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Stella
  • Sacred Heart
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Wayne ...

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 110 newspapers that have been published in the area around Wayne.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Wayne. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Wayne and those printed in the larger area surrounding Wayne.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4> of Wayne.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we like to start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These helpful 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 Wayne:

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 Wayne, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or 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- Wayne) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.