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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Texas >> Howard County >> Forsan >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

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 Forsan (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 Forsan. 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 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.

Forsan is located in Howard 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 Howard County: Borden, Dawson, Glasscock, Martin, Midland, Mitchell, Scurry & Sterling.

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

  • Howard County     (The home county of Forsan)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Forsan, with the one closest to Forsan listed first.
    • Ross City ‑ Historic
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the east)
      • Ross City is located in Howard County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ross City
    • Otis Chalk ‑ Historic
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
      • Otis Chalk is located in Howard County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Otis Chalk
    • Webb Village
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Webb Village is located in Howard County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Webb Village
    • Ziler
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
      • Ziler is located in Howard County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ziler
    • Big Spring
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Coahoma
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the north)
    • Fairview
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
      • Fairview is located in Howard County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fairview
    • Knott
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Vealmoor
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Glasscock County
  • Martin County
    • Stanton
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
  • Mitchell County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Forsan, with the one closest to Forsan listed first.
    • Iatan
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
      • Iatan is located in Mitchell County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Iatan
    • Spade
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
      • Spade is located in Mitchell County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Spade
    • Westbrook
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Sterling County
    • Sterling City
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)

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

Cemeteries Near Forsan ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Forsan.

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

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

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

  • Trinity Memorial Park
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Mt. Olive Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Coahoma Cemetery
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Coahoma Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Coahoma Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the southeast of Coahoma.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #1090378 <2>
  • Garden City Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
  • Lolanthe Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
  • Iatan Cemetery
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Evergreen Cemetery
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Evergreen Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Evergreen Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the southeast of Stanton.
  • Westbrook Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Spade Cemetery
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Knott Cemetery
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
  • Vincent Cemetery
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
  • Edwards Cemetery
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
  • Vealmoor Cemetery
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)

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

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

  • Big Spring
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Morita
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
    • Morita is located in Howard County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Morita
  • Garden City
    (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
  • Iatan
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Iatan is located in Mitchell County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Iatan
  • Stanton
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
  • Westbrook
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Sterling City
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)

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

Newspapers Published in Forsan ...

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 Forsan.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Forsan, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Forsan.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we start 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 Forsan:

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 Forsan, 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 obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Forsan) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.