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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 Dilley (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 Dilley. 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.

Dilley is located in Frio 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 Frio County: Atascosa, Dimmit, La Salle, McMullen, Medina, Uvalde & Zavala.

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

  • Frio County     (The home county of Dilley)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Dilley, with the one closest to Dilley listed first.
    • Hilltop
      (Less than 2 miles to the north)
      • Hilltop is located in Frio County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hilltop
      • Hilltop has also been known as:
      • Hilltop Colonia
    • Derby
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
      • Derby is located in Frio County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Derby
      • Derby has also been known as:
      • Derby Colonia
    • Divot ‑ Historic
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northwest)
      • Divot is located in Frio County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Divot
    • Pearsall
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
    • West Pearsall
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
      • West Pearsall is located in Frio County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for West Pearsall
    • North Pearsall
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
      • North Pearsall is located in Frio County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North Pearsall
    • Frio Town ‑ Historic
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
      • Frio Town is located in Frio County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Frio Town
    • Moore
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
  • Atascosa County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Dilley, with the one closest to Dilley listed first.
    • Hindes
      (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
      • Hindes is located in Atascosa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hindes
    • Davis
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
      • Davis is located in Atascosa County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Davis
  • Dimmit County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Dilley, with the one closest to Dilley listed first.
    • Big Wells
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
    • Brundage
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
      • Brundage is located in Dimmit County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Brundage
  • La Salle County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Dilley, with the one closest to Dilley listed first.
    • Millett
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
      • Millett is located in La Salle County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Millett
    • Woodward ‑ Historic
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Woodward is located in La Salle County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Woodward
    • Cotulla
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
    • Los Angeles
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Fowlerton
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Artesia Wells
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
  • McMullen County
    • Zella
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
      • Zella is located in McMullen County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Zella

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

Cemeteries Near Dilley ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Dilley.

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

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

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

  • Diller Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • Hugo Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
  • Derby Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Covey Chapel Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
  • Buckhorn Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Cotulla Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
  • Cotulla East Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
  • Pearsall Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
  • Big Wells Cemetery
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
  • St. Michaels Cemetery
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
  • Frio Town Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
  • Loma Vista Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
  • Continue List   (8 more) ...
    • Luna Cemetery
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Miguel Cemetery
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Fowlerton Cemetery
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)

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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that in 1895, Dilley had railroad service and no post office. In 2020, Dilley had a population of 4,527 people.

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

  • Millett
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
    • Millett is located in La Salle County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Millett
  • Derby
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
    • Derby is located in Frio County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Derby
    • Derby has also been known as:
    • Derby Colonia
  • Pearsall
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
  • Cotulla
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
  • Frio Town ‑ Historic
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • Frio Town is located in Frio County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Frio Town
  • Moore
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Dilley ...

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 6 newspapers that have been published in the area around Dilley.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

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

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first turn to 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 Dilley:

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 Dilley, 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 from Point A (ie- Dilley) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.