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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 Carretas Crossing (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 Carretas Crossing. 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 Carretas Crossing ...

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.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Carretas Crossing: Carretas Xing.

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.

Carretas Crossing is located in Cameron 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 Cameron County: Hidalgo & Willacy.

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

  • Cameron County     (The home county of Carretas Crossing)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Carretas Crossing, with the one closest to Carretas Crossing listed first.
    • Laguna Heights
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Laguna Heights is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Laguna Heights
    • Laguna Vista
      (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
    • Port Isabel
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Boca Chica
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
      • Boca Chica is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Boca Chica
      • Former names for Boca Chica:
      • Kennedy Shores
      • Kopernik Shores
    • Del Mar Heights
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the west)
      • Del Mar Heights is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Del Mar Heights
      • Del Mar Heights has also been known as:
      • Del Mar Heights Colonia
    • South Padre Island
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Clarksville ‑ Historic
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Clarksville is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Clarksville
    • Bayview
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Reid Hope King
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Reid Hope King is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Reid Hope King
      • Reid Hope King has also been known as:
      • Reid Hope King Colonia
    • Chula Vista - Orason
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
      • Chula Vista - Orason is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Chula Vista - Orason
    • South Point
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
      • South Point is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for South Point
      • South Point has also been known as:
      • South Point Colonia
    • Los Fresnos
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
  • Willacy County
    • Santa Monica
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
      • Santa Monica is located in Willacy County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Santa Monica

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

Cemeteries Near Carretas Crossing ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Carretas Crossing.

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 Carretas Crossing - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Southmost Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Soldiers Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Santa Rosalia Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Buena Vista Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Old City Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Russell's Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the west)
  • La Leona Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
  • Monte Meta Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
  • San Benito City Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
  • San Benito Memorial Park Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
  • Zepeda Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Zepeda Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Zepeda Cemetery is located 2 miles [3.2 km]<3> to the southeast of La Paloma.
  • Rio Hondo Community Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rio Hondo Community Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Rio Hondo Community Cemetery is located outside and to the east of Rio Hondo.
    • The Rio Hondo Community Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Jack Carpenter Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2188890 <2>
  • Continue List   (8 more) ...
    • Rio Hondo City Cemetery
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
    • Harlingan City Cemetery
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
    • Cavazos Family Cemetery
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cavazos Family Cemetery
      • To give a relative sense of its location, the Cavazos Family Cemetery is located 11 miles [17.7 km]<3> to the southeast of San Perlita.
      • The Cavazos Family Cemetery has also been known as:
      • Sabino Cemetery
      • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2492338 <2>

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>

While we didn't find Carretas Crossing in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Carretas Crossing.

  • Brownsville
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)

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

Newspapers Published in Carretas Crossing ...

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 62 newspapers that have been published in the area around Carretas Crossing.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Carretas Crossing, there are papers which were published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Carretas Crossing.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we begin with 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 Carretas Crossing:

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 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Carretas Crossing) 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 Carretas Crossing, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.