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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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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 Jefferson City (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 Jefferson City. 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.

Name Variations for Jefferson City ...

When searching records, keep in mind that names and their spelling can change over time. Our sources include documents like maps, railroad schedules, Travel, Express and Shipping Guides. Many of these documents date from the 1800's and it's common to find spelling differences.

The city of Jefferson City was originally named Mossy Creek

You might be interested in other communities that are also named Jefferson City. More information can be found on our Tidbits & Trivia Page for Jefferson City.

If you have information about these names (such as the reason for the change, date of change, the origin of the name), please Contact Us.

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.

Jefferson City is located in Jefferson County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Jefferson County: Cocke, Grainger, Hamblen, Knox & Sevier.

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

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

Cemeteries Near Jefferson City ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Jefferson City.

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 Jefferson City - one of the links might be able to help.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Jefferson City, with the one closest to Jefferson City 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 Jefferson City in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Jefferson City.

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

  • Alena ‑ Historic
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
    • Alena is located in Jefferson County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alena
  • Mount Horeb
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Mount Horeb is located in Jefferson County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mount Horeb
  • Mill Spring
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Mill Spring is located in Jefferson County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mill Spring
  • Dyers Ferry
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the north)
    • Dyers Ferry is located in Grainger County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dyers Ferry
    • Estimated population in 2014: 16,839 people
  • New Market
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
  • Flat Gap
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
  • Talbott
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Lucilla ‑ Historic
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Lucilla is located in Jefferson County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lucilla
  • Piedmont
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
  • Edna
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • May Springs ‑ Historic
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
    • May Springs is located in Grainger County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for May Springs
  • Tampico
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Tampico is located in Grainger County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tampico
  • Continue List   (15 more) ...
    • Dandridge
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Alpha
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Alpha is located in Hamblen County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alpha
    • Hodges
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
      • Hodges is located in Jefferson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hodges

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Jefferson City ...

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 24 newspapers that have been published in the area around Jefferson City.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Jefferson City. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Jefferson City and those printed in the larger area surrounding Jefferson City.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 11 miles [17.7 km]<4> of Jefferson City.

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 Jefferson City:

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