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 Fort Stockton (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 Fort Stockton. 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.

Name Variations for Fort Stockton ...

When searching records, keep in mind that names and their spelling can change over time. Our sources include documents like maps, railroad schedules, Travel, Express and Shipping Guides. Many of these documents date from the 1800's and it's common to find spelling differences.

Although we can't give a definitive list, hopefully the following will give you a feel for the variations that might have occurred.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Fort Stockton: Ft. Stockton

If you have information about these names (such as the reason for the change, date of change, the origin of the name), please Contact Us.

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 doctors and hospitals 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.

Fort Stockton is located in Pecos County and is the County Seat.

To see how the shape of Texas' counties have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Pecos County: Brewster, Crane, Jeff Davis, Reeves, Terrell & Ward.

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

• Pecos County     (The home county of Fort Stockton)
  • The following are listed by their distance from Fort Stockton, with the one closest to Fort Stockton listed first.
  • Coyanosa
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Coyanosa have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Coyanosa
    • Coyanosa is located in Pecos County
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Coyanosa <2>
  • Abell City
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Abell City have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Abell City
    • Abell City is located in Pecos County
  • Imperial
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Imperial
    • Imperial is located in Pecos County
    • Imperial has also been known as:
    • Imperial Colonia
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Imperial <2>
• Ward County
  • Grandfalls
    (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Grandfalls have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grandfalls
    • Grandfalls is located in Ward County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 403 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Grandfalls <2>

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Fort Stockton ...

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 4 newspapers that have been published in the area around Fort Stockton.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

• A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Fort Stockton. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Fort Stockton and those printed in the larger area surrounding Fort Stockton.
• An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<3> of Fort Stockton.

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 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 Fort Stockton:

• Websites specific to Texas
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails
  • Website for the //www.tsl.texas.gov/

• Pages specific to Pecos County
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails

• Genealogy information for nearby counties
  • Ward County
    • Jump to Cyndi's List
    • Jump to Family Search
    • Jump to Genealogy Trails

• Cemetery Information and Directories for Texas
  • Cemetery Junction: Cemeteries of Texas
  • Cyndi's List
  • Cemeteries of Texas
  • Cemeteries of Pecos County
  • FamilySearch.org: Cemeteries of Texas
  • Find-A-Grave: Home Page
  • Interment.net
  • Cemeteries of Texas

Cemeteries Near Fort Stockton ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Fort Stockton.

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.

If you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our selection of Genealogy Websites (see below).

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

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

• Old Fort Cemetery
  (Less than 2 miles to the east)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Old Fort Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Old Fort Cemetery
• East Hill Cemetery
  (Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the East Hill Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<1> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the East Hill Cemetery

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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Fort Stockton had a population of 439 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service. In 2020, Fort Stockton had a population of 8,373 people.

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

Off-the-Road Links ...

The official website for Fort Stockton: www.ci.fort-stockton.tx.us/

The official website for Pecos County: www.co.pecos.tx.us/

The official website for State of Texas: https://texas.gov/