RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Texas >> Navarro County >> Barry >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

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 Barry (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 Barry. 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.

Barry is located in Navarro County.

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

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Navarro County: Anderson, Ellis, Freestone, Henderson, Hill & Limestone.

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

  • Navarro County     (The home county of Barry)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Barry, with the one closest to Barry listed first.
    • Cryer Creek ‑ Historic
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Blooming Grove
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
    • Emhouse
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
      • Emhouse is located in Navarro County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Emhouse
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 154 people
    • Dresden
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
    • Silver City
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
      • Silver City is located in Navarro County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Silver City
    • Oak Valley
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
      • Oak Valley is located in Navarro County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oak Valley
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 427 people
    • Corsicana
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
    • Retreat
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
      • Retreat is located in Navarro County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Retreat
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 384 people
    • Navarro Mills
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
    • Purdon
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
    • Frost
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
    • Rice
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Dallas County
    • Ferris
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
  • Ellis County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Barry, with the one closest to Barry listed first.
    • Avalon
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Bardwell
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
    • Alma
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
      • Alma is located in Ellis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alma
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 400 people
    • Ennis
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
    • Howard
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Nash
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Italy
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
    • Forreston
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Garrett
      (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
      • Garrett is located in Ellis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Garrett
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 891 people
    • Milford
      (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
    • Boyce
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
    • Crisp
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the north)
  • Freestone County
  • Henderson County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Barry, with the one closest to Barry listed first.
    • Seven Points
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Tool
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Tool is located in Henderson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tool
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,335 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Tool <1>
  • Hill County
  • Kaufman County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Barry, with the one closest to Barry listed first.
    • Styx
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Rosser
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Cottonwood
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Cottonwood is located in Kaufman County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cottonwood
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 209 people
    • Stubbs
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Tolosa
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Grays Prairie
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Grays Prairie is located in Kaufman County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grays Prairie
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 388 people
  • Limestone County

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

Cemeteries Near Barry ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Barry.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Barry, with the one closest to Barry 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.<4>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that in 1895, Barry had a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Barry had a population of 273 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Barry ...

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 91 newspapers that have been published in the area around Barry.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Barry. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Barry and those printed in the larger area surrounding Barry.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<3> of Barry.

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 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 Barry:

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>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 drawn from Point A (ie- Barry) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<4>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 Barry, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.