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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 Baytown (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 Baytown. 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 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.

Baytown is primarily located in Chambers County. A portion of Baytown extends into Harris 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 Chambers County: Harris, Jefferson & Liberty.

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

  • Chambers County     (The home county of Baytown)
  • Brazoria County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Baytown, with the one closest to Baytown listed first.
    • Woodcreek
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Brookside Village
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Pearland
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Westwood Village
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
      • Westwood Village is located in Brazoria County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Westwood Village
    • West Oaks Village
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
      • West Oaks Village is located in Brazoria County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for West Oaks Village
    • Fairway Village
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Fairway Village is located in Brazoria County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fairway Village
    • Alvin
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Hillcrest
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Manvel
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Manvel is located in Brazoria County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Manvel
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 13,867 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Manvel <1>
  • Galveston County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Baytown, with the one closest to Baytown listed first.
    • Clear Lake Shores
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
    • Kemah
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
      • Kemah is located in Galveston County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kemah
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,048 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Kemah <1>
    • Bacliff
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
    • South Shore Village
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
      • South Shore Village is located in Galveston County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for South Shore Village
    • San Leon
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
    • League City
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Dickinson
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
    • Parkwood Village
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
      • Parkwood Village is located in Galveston County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Parkwood Village
    • Quaker Village
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
      • Quaker Village is located in Galveston County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Quaker Village
    • Friendswood
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southwest)
    • Carmel Village
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
      • Carmel Village is located in Galveston County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Carmel Village
    • Texas City
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
  • Harris County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Baytown, with the one closest to Baytown listed first.
    • Chaparral Village
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
      • Chaparral Village is located in Harris County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Chaparral Village
    • Cedar Bayou
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Morgan's Point
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
      • Morgan's Point is located in Harris County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Morgan's Point
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 337 people
    • La Porte
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
    • Highlands
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Gateway Village
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the south)
      • Gateway Village is located in Harris County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gateway Village
    • Channelview
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
    • Deer Park
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
    • Barrett
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
    • El Lago
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
    • Mystic Village
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
      • Mystic Village is located in Harris County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mystic Village
    • Taylor Lake Village
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Liberty County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Baytown, with the one closest to Baytown listed first.
    • Moss Bluff
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
    • Stilson
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
    • Dayton
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Gum Grove
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Liberty
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Kenefick
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
      • Kenefick is located in Liberty County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Kenefick
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 722 people
    • Ames
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Raywood
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Dayton Lakes
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
      • Dayton Lakes is located in Liberty County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Dayton Lakes
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 107 people
    • Woodson
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Woodson is located in Liberty County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Woodson
    • Devers
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Montgomery County

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

Cemeteries Near Baytown ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Baytown.

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

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

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

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Baytown ...

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 37 newspapers that have been published in the area around Baytown.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Baytown. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Baytown and those printed in the larger area surrounding Baytown.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 15 miles [24.1 km]<4> of Baytown.

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 either 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 Baytown:

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 Baytown, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Baytown) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.