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 Andrews (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 Andrews. 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 southwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals were in the next county to the west. 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 west 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.

Andrews is located in Andrews County and is the County Seat.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Andrews County: Lea (NM), Ector, Gaines, Martin, Midland & Winkler.

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

• Andrews County     (The home county of Andrews)
  • The following are listed by their distance from Andrews, with the one closest to Andrews listed first.
  • Shafter Lake ‑ Historic
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Shafter Lake have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Shafter Lake
    • Shafter Lake is located in Andrews County
  • Florey
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Florey
    • Florey is located in Andrews County
  • Frankel City ‑ Historic
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Frankel City have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Frankel City
    • Frankel City is located in Andrews County
• Ector County
  • The following are listed by their distance from Andrews, with the one closest to Andrews listed first.
  • Scharbauer City
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Scharbauer City have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Scharbauer City
    • Scharbauer City is located in Ector County
  • Goldsmith
    (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Goldsmith have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Goldsmith
    • Goldsmith is located in Ector County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 277 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Goldsmith <2>
  • Gardendale
    (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gardendale
    • Gardendale is located in Ector County
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Gardendale <2>
  • Notrees
    (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Notrees have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Notrees
    • Notrees is located in Ector County
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Notrees <2>
• Gaines County
  • Seminole
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Seminole
    • Seminole is located in Gaines County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 7,952 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Seminole <2>

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Andrews ...

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 4 newspapers that have been published in the area around Andrews.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

• A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Andrews. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Andrews and those printed in the larger area surrounding Andrews.
• An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<3> of Andrews.

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 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 Andrews:

• Websites specific to Texas
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails
  • Website for the //www.tsl.texas.gov/

• Pages specific to Andrews County
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails

• Genealogy information for nearby counties
  • Ector County
    • Jump to Cyndi's List
    • Jump to Family Search
    • Jump to Genealogy Trails
  • Gaines County
    • Jump to Cyndi's List
    • Jump to Family Search
    • Jump to Genealogy Trails

• Cemetery Information and Directories for Texas
  • Cemetery Junction: Cemeteries of Texas
  • Cyndi's List
  • Cemeteries of Texas
  • Cemeteries of Andrews County
  • FamilySearch.org: Cemeteries of Texas
  • Find-A-Grave: Home Page
  • Interment.net
  • Cemeteries of Texas

Cemeteries Near Andrews ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Andrews.

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

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

• Andrews North Cemetery
  (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Andrews North Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #1967624 <4>
• Andrews Cemetery
  (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • To give a relative sense of its location, the Andrews Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the southwest of Andrews.
  • The Andrews Cemetery has also been known as:
  • Andrews County Cemetery
  • Old Andrews Cemetery
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Andrews Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #240561 <4>
• Andrews West Cemetery
  (Less than 2 miles to the southwest)
  • To give a relative sense of its location, the Andrews West Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the southwest of Andrews.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Andrews West Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2132550 <4>
• Shafter Lake Cemetery
  (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Shafter Lake Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #6858 <4>
• Gaines County Cemetery
  (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
  • To give a relative sense of its location, the Gaines County Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the south of Seminole.
  • The Gaines County Cemetery has also been known as:
  • Gaines County South Cemetery
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Gaines County Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2218389 <4>
• American Heritage Cemetery
  (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the American Heritage Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2533472 <4>

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

Off-the-Road Links ...

The official website for Andrews: www.cityofandrews.org/

The official website for Andrews County: www.co.andrews.tx.us/

The official website for State of Texas: https://texas.gov/