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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 Edinburg (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 Edinburg. 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 and doctors 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.

Edinburg is located in Hidalgo County and is the County Seat.

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 Edinburg. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Edinburg:

  • Hidalgo County     (The home county of Edinburg)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Edinburg, with the one closest to Edinburg listed first.
    • Gate City Acres
      (Less than 2 miles to the east)
      • Gate City Acres is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gate City Acres
      • Gate City Acres has also been known as:
      • Gate City Acres Colonia
    • Cesar Chavez
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the east)
      • Cesar Chavez is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cesar Chavez
    • Nurillo
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Seminary Village
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
      • Seminary Village is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Seminary Village
      • Seminary Village has also been known as:
      • Seminary Village Colonia
    • Doolittle
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Lopezville
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
    • Murillo
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
    • San Carlos
      (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
      • San Carlos is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for San Carlos
    • Muniz
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
      • Muniz is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Muniz
      • Muniz has also been known as:
      • Muniz Colonia
    • Campo Alto
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
    • Citriana Village
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
      • 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
    • North Alamo
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
      • North Alamo is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North Alamo
    • Faysville
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
  • Cameron County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Edinburg, with the one closest to Edinburg listed first.
    • Ratamosa
      (20 miles [32.2 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
    • Tierra Bonita
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
      • Tierra Bonita is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tierra Bonita
      • Tierra Bonita has also been known as:
      • Tierra Bonita Colonia
    • Grand Acres
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
      • Grand Acres is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grand Acres
    • Santa Rosa
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
    • Yznaga
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
      • Yznaga is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Yznaga
    • Bixby
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Solis
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
      • Solis is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Solis
      • Solis has also been known as:
      • Solis Colonia
    • La Feria North
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
    • North La Feria Village
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
      • 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
    • Windsong Village
      (23 miles [37 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
    • Arroyo Alto
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
      • Arroyo Alto is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arroyo Alto
    • La Feria
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southeast)
    • Longoria Townsite
      (24 miles [38.6 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
  • Starr County
  • Willacy County

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

Cemeteries Near Edinburg ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Edinburg.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Edinburg, with the one closest to Edinburg 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>

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

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

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

Newspapers Published in Edinburg ...

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 15 newspapers that have been published in the area around Edinburg.

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 Edinburg:

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' (or 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- Edinburg) 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 Edinburg, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.