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The Commemorative Quarter for South Carolina





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 Fredonia (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 Fredonia. 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 hospitals 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.

Fredonia is located in Lexington County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Lexington County: Aiken, Calhoun, Newberry, Orangeburg, Richland & Saluda.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Fredonia ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Fredonia.

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 Fredonia covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

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

  • St. James Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the St. James Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the St. James Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Risinger Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Risinger Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Risinger Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Banks Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Banks Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Banks Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Derrick Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Derrick Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Derrick Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • First Baptist Church Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
  • Banks Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Banks Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Banks Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Barr Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Barr Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Barr Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • St. James Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the St. James Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the St. James Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Boatwright Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Boatwright Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Boatwright Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Lightner - Christian Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Lightner - Christian Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Lightner - Christian Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Old Salem Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Old Salem Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Old Salem Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Fullmer Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Fullmer Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Fullmer Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Continue List   (333 more) ...
    • Butler Cemetery
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Butler Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Butler Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Warren Cemetery
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Warren Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Warren Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Ridge Crest Cemetery
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Ridge Crest Cemetery
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Ridge Crest Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.

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 in 1895, Fredonia had a post office and no railroad service.

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

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

Newspapers Published in Fredonia ...

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 38 newspapers that have been published in the area around Fredonia.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Fredonia, there are papers which were published within 18 miles [29 km]<6>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Fredonia.

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 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 Fredonia:

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

The official website for Lexington County: www.lex-co.com/

The official website for State of South Carolina: https://sc.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 Fredonia, 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 from Point A (ie- Fredonia) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Fredonia. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 33.9273, Longitude: -81.4616       In this case, the coordinates for Fredonia have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 22 Apr 2025