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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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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 Fairmont (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 Fairmont. 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 northwest 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 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 west 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.

Fairmont is located in Floyd 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 Floyd County: Briscoe, Crosby, Dickens, Hale, Lubbock, Motley & Swisher.

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

  • Floyd County     (The home county of Fairmont)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Fairmont, with the one closest to Fairmont listed first.
    • Gray Mule ‑ Historic
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northwest)
      • Gray Mule is located in Floyd County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Gray Mule
    • Cedar Hill
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Cedar Hill is located in Floyd County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cedar Hill
    • South Plains
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
    • Della Plain ‑ Historic
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
      • Della Plain is located in Floyd County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Della Plain
    • Sterley ‑ Historic
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
      • Sterley is located in Floyd County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sterley
    • Dougherty
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
    • Lockney
      (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
    • Floydada
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Aiken
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the west)
  • Briscoe County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Fairmont, with the one closest to Fairmont listed first.
    • Quitaque
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
    • Whitney
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Whitney is located in Briscoe County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Whitney
    • Silverton
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
  • Hall County
    • Turkey
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Motley County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Fairmont, with the one closest to Fairmont listed first.
    • Flomot
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Matador
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Roaring Springs
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Swisher County
    • Claytonville
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
      • Claytonville is located in Swisher County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Claytonville

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

Cemeteries Near Fairmont ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Fairmont.

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

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

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

  • Keeter Graves
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the southeast)
  • Gray Mule Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northwest)
  • Resthaven Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Resthaven Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Resthaven Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the east of Quitaque.
    • The Resthaven Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Quitaque Cemetery
    • Rest Haven Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #6317 <2>
  • Whiteflat Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
  • Dreamland Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Rushing Chapel Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Silverton Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
  • Floydada Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
  • East Mound Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Antelope Cemetery
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
  • Roaring Springs Cemetery
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
  • Scott Cemetery
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Lakeview Cemetery
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southwest)

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 Fairmont in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Fairmont.

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

  • Della Plain ‑ Historic
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Della Plain is located in Floyd County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Della Plain
  • Silverton
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
  • Matador
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southeast)
  • Lockney
    (23 miles [37 km] to the southwest)
  • Floydada
    (24 miles [38.6 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 Fairmont. See our List of 1890's Communities around Fairmont.

Newspapers Published in Fairmont ...

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 17 newspapers that have been published in the area around Fairmont.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Fairmont, there are papers which were published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Fairmont.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we like to start with 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 Fairmont:

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 Fairmont, 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' (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- Fairmont) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.