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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 LaFollette (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 LaFollette. 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 LaFollette ...

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.

Although we can't give a definitive list, hopefully the following will give you a feel for the variations that might occur.

LaFollette has also been known as: Big Creek Gap.

Other variations include: Bigcreek Gap and La Follette.

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 doctors and 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.

LaFollette is located in Campbell 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 Campbell County: McCreary (KY), Whitley (KY), Anderson, Claiborne, Scott & Union.

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

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

Cemeteries Near LaFollette ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of LaFollette.

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

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

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

  • Dugtown Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • Laban Sharp Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
  • Talley Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the north)
  • Rogers Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • Woodlawn Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • Tiller - Ford Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • Burris Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • Baird Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the south)
  • Walters Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
  • Kitts Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
  • Sharp Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
  • Myers Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northeast)
  • Continue List   (1115 more) ...
    • Ivydell Cemetery
      (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
    • Johnson Cemetery
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the south)
    • McCormick Cemetery
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the north)

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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that LaFollette had a population of 75 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service. In 2020, LaFollette had a population of 6,585 people.

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

  • Whitman ‑ Historic
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
    • Whitman is located in Campbell County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Whitman
  • Fincastle
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Fincastle is located in Campbell County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fincastle
    • Population from the 2010 Census: 1,618 people
  • Jacksboro
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
  • Boy ‑ Historic
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Boy is located in Campbell County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Boy
  • Caryville
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Hatmaker ‑ Historic
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
    • Hatmaker is located in Campbell County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hatmaker
  • Pine Mountain ‑ Historic
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
    • Pine Mountain is located in Campbell County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pine Mountain
  • Agee ‑ Historic
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Agee is located in Campbell County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Agee
  • Girlton ‑ Historic
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
    • Girlton is located in Campbell County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Girlton
  • Lindsay Mill
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
    • Lindsay Mill is located in Campbell County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lindsay Mill
  • Powells River ‑ Historic
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
    • Powells River is located in Campbell County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Powells River
  • Stockville ‑ Historic
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
    • Stockville is located in Campbell County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Stockville
  • Continue List   (15 more) ...
    • Forkvale ‑ Historic
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Forkvale is located in Campbell County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Forkvale
    • Ray ‑ Historic
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
      • Ray is located in Union County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ray
    • Buckeye
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
      • Buckeye is located in Campbell County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Buckeye

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of LaFollette ...

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 15 newspapers that have been published in the area around LaFollette.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of LaFollette. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of LaFollette and those printed in the larger area surrounding LaFollette.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 14 miles [22.5 km]<4> of LaFollette.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit 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 LaFollette:

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