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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 Drinker (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 Drinker. 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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals 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 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 counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Drinker is located in Lackawanna County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Lackawanna County: Luzerne, Monroe, Susquehanna, Wayne & Wyoming.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Drinker ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Drinker.

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.

If you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our selection of Genealogy Websites (see below).

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Drinker, with the one closest to Drinker 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.<5>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Drinker had a population of 70 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service.

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

  • Hollisterville
    (Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
  • Mount Cobb
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Mount Cobb have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mount Cobb
    • Mount Cobb is located in Lackawanna County
  • Wimmers
    (Less than 2 miles to the west)
  • Madisonville
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Madisonville have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Madisonville
    • Madisonville is located in Lackawanna County
  • Maplewood
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Elmhurst
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
  • Moscow
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Moscow have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Moscow
    • Moscow is located in Lackawanna County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,026 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Moscow <2>
  • Sterling
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
  • Lake Ariel
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Lake Ariel have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lake Ariel
    • Lake Ariel is located in Wayne County
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Lake Ariel <2>
  • Gravity
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Gravity have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gravity
    • Gravity is located in Wayne County
  • Varden
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Varden have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Varden
    • Varden is located in Wayne County
  • Nay Aug
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Nay Aug have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Nay Aug
    • Nay Aug is located in Lackawanna County
  • Continue List   (16 more) ...
    • Daleville
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Daleville have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Daleville
      • Daleville is located in Lackawanna County
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Daleville <2>
    • Freytown
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Freytown have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Freytown
      • Freytown is located in Lackawanna County
    • Ledgedale
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Ledgedale. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ledgedale
      • Ledgedale is located in Pike County
      • Google driving directions:
      • From your current location to Ledgedale
      • From Drinker to Ledgedale

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

Newspapers Published in Drinker ...

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 140 newspapers that have been published in the area around Drinker.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Drinker, there are papers which were published within 15 miles [24.1 km]<6>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Drinker.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

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

Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for Drinker. If you can help, please contact us through our Feedback Page.

The official website for Lackawanna County: www.lackawannacounty.org/

The official website for Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: https://www.pa.gov/

Footnotes ...

<1>The location has been supplied by the Geographic Names Information System - which is maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). While these values should be definitive, we found that accuracy can vary and you should double-check the location if accuracy is required.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>An 'estimated' location is one where we have been given GPS coordinates, but are unable to verify the accuracy of those coordinates. That said, we have some confidence that we have placed the marker near the actual location. A typical reason for being unable to verify a location is that it might be on private property or maybe historic and gone without an obvious trace.
<4>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.
<5>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 Drinker, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<6>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- Drinker) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Drinker. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 41.3994, Longitude: -75.4625       In this case, the coordinates for Drinker have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 29 Apr 2025