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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 Donna (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 Donna. 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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next county to the east. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the north.

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 north 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.

Donna is located in Hidalgo 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 Hidalgo County: Brooks, Cameron, Kenedy, Starr & Willacy.

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

  • Hidalgo County     (The home county of Donna)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Donna, with the one closest to Donna listed first.
    • Midway North
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Scissors
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the south)
      • Scissors is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Scissors
    • Midway South
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Midway Village
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
      • Midway Village is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Midway Village
      • Midway Village has also been known as:
      • Midway Village Colonia
    • North Alamo Village
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northwest)
      • North Alamo Village is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North Alamo Village
      • North Alamo Village has also been known as:
      • North Alamo Village Colonia
    • South Alamo
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the west)
    • Weslaco
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the east)
    • Villa Verde
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
      • Villa Verde is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Villa Verde
      • Villa Verde has also been known as:
      • Villa Verde Colonia
    • Alamo
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
    • Plumosa Village
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
      • Plumosa Village is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Plumosa Village
      • Plumosa Village has also been known as:
      • Plumosa Village Colonia
    • Southside Village
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
      • Southside Village is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Southside Village
      • Southside Village has also been known as:
      • Southside Village Colonia
    • Campo Alto
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
    • Citriana Village
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
      • Citriana Village is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Citriana Village
      • Citriana Village has also been known as:
      • Citriana Village Colonia
  • Cameron County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Donna, with the one closest to Donna listed first.
    • Bixby
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
    • North La Feria Village
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
      • North La Feria Village is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North La Feria Village
      • North La Feria Village has also been known as:
      • North La Feria Village Colonia
    • Ratamosa
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
      • Ratamosa is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ratamosa
      • Ratamosa has also been known as:
      • Ratamosa Colonia
    • Solis
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the east)
      • Solis is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Solis
      • Solis has also been known as:
      • Solis Colonia
    • Arroyo Alto
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
      • Arroyo Alto is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arroyo Alto
    • Grand Acres
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
      • Grand Acres is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grand Acres
    • La Feria North
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
    • La Feria
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
    • Windsong Village
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
      • Windsong Village is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Windsong Village
      • Windsong Village has also been known as:
      • Windsong Village Colonia
    • Longoria Townsite
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Longoria Townsite is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Longoria Townsite
      • Longoria Townsite has also been known as:
      • Longoria Townsite Colonia
    • Santa Maria
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Bluetown - Iglesia Antigua
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Bluetown
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southeast)
  • Willacy County

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

Cemeteries Near Donna ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Donna.

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

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

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

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Donna ...

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 20 newspapers that have been published in the area around Donna.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Donna. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Donna and those printed in the larger area surrounding Donna.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 8 miles [12.9 km]<4> of Donna.

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 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 Donna:

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