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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 Scotts Hill (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 Scotts Hill. 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 Scotts Hill ...

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.

While the name of this town is Scotts Hill, be aware that it's the common practice of mapmakers to remove the apostrophe from possessive names<1>. So Scotts Hill may originally have been Scott's Hill.

Sometimes the trailing 's' might be dropped altogether, in which case Scotts Hill might be written as Scott Hill.

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

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 and doctors 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.

Scotts Hill is primarily located in Decatur County. A portion of Scotts Hill extends into Henderson 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 Decatur County: Benton, Carroll, Hardin, Henderson, Perry & Wayne.

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

  • Decatur County     (The home county of Scotts Hill)
  • Benton County
  • Carroll County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Scotts Hill, with the one closest to Scotts Hill listed first.
    • Clarksburg
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
      • Clarksburg is located in Carroll County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Clarksburg
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 376 people
    • Anark
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
    • Cedar Grove
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Concord
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
  • Chester County
  • Hardin County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Scotts Hill, with the one closest to Scotts Hill listed first.
    • Saltillo
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
    • Sibley
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
    • Johnson Ford
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
      • Johnson Ford is located in Hardin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Johnson Ford
      • Estimated population in 2014: 65,813 people
    • Swift
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
      • Swift is located in Hardin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Swift
      • Estimated population in 2014: 5,874 people
    • Centerview
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
      • Centerview is located in Hardin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Centerview
      • Estimated population in 2014: 244 people
    • Paulks ‑ Historic
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
      • Paulks is located in Hardin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Paulks
    • New Town
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
      • New Town is located in Hardin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for New Town
    • Belle Meade
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
      • Belle Meade is located in Hardin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Belle Meade
      • Estimated population in 2014: 3,017 people
    • Crump
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
    • Savannah
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
    • Smiths Fork ‑ Historic
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
      • Smiths Fork is located in Hardin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Smiths Fork
    • Pittsburg Landing Ferry
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
      • Pittsburg Landing Ferry is located in Hardin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pittsburg Landing Ferry
      • Estimated population in 2014: 555 people
    • Nixon
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
      • Nixon is located in Hardin County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Nixon
      • Estimated population in 2014: 718 people
  • Henderson County
  • Madison County
  • McNairy County
  • Perry County
  • Wayne County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Scotts Hill, with the one closest to Scotts Hill listed first.
    • Clifton
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Sorby ‑ Historic
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
      • Sorby is located in Wayne County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sorby
    • Slickrock Ford
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
      • Slickrock Ford is located in Wayne County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Slickrock Ford
      • Estimated population in 2014: 179 people
    • Lutts
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Waynesboro
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)

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

Cemeteries Near Scotts Hill ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Scotts Hill.

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 Scotts Hill - one of the links might be able to help.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Scotts Hill, with the one closest to Scotts Hill 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 Scotts Hill had a population of 200 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service. In 2020, Scotts Hill had a population of 973 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Scotts Hill ...

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 25 newspapers that have been published in the area around Scotts Hill.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Scotts Hill. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Scotts Hill and those printed in the larger area surrounding Scotts Hill.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 16 miles [25.7 km]<4> of Scotts Hill.

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 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 Scotts Hill:

Footnotes ...

<1>It's generally believed that possessive apostrophes are removed to prevent confusion on maps where the apostrophe may be confused with a cartographic symbol. While this is generally true, it's not uncommon to find possessive apostrophes in administrative names (such as towns or counties).
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>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.
<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- Scotts Hill) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<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 Scotts Hill, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.