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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 Grandfalls (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 Grandfalls. 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 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.

Grandfalls is located in Ward County.

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 Ward County: Crane, Ector, Loving, Pecos, Reeves & Winkler.

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

  • Ward County     (The home county of Grandfalls)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Grandfalls, with the one closest to Grandfalls listed first.
    • Royalty
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the north)
    • Thorntonville
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Thorntonville have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Thorntonville
      • Thorntonville is located in Ward County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 558 people
    • Monahans
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
    • Wickett
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Wickett have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wickett
      • Wickett is located in Ward County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 558 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Wickett <1>
    • Pyote
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
  • Crane County
    • Crane
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
  • Ector County
    • Judkins
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northeast)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Judkins
      • Judkins is located in Ector County
  • Pecos County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Grandfalls, with the one closest to Grandfalls listed first.
    • Imperial
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Abell City
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Abell City have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Abell City
      • Abell City is located in Pecos County
    • Coyanosa
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Coyanosa have been provided by the GNIS.<2> 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 <1>
    • Fort Stockton
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Fort Stockton have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fort Stockton
      • Fort Stockton is located in Pecos County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 8,373 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Fort Stockton <1>

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

Cemeteries Near Grandfalls ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Grandfalls.

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 Grandfalls covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

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

  • Tamarisk Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Tamarisk Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Tamarisk Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located less than 2 miles<3> to the northwest of Grandfalls.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #7172 <4>
  • Wilks Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Wilks Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Wilks Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Monahans Memorial Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Monahans Memorial Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Monahans Memorial Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located in Monahans.
    • The Monahans Memorial Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Municipal Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2138721 <4>
  • Pyote Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Pyote Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Pyote Cemetery is located outside and to the east of Pyote.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2228433 <4>
  • County South Cemetery
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the County South Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the County South Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.

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.<5>

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

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

  • Pyote
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
  • Metz
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Metz have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Metz
    • Metz is located in Ector County

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Grandfalls ...

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 13 newspapers that have been published in the area around Grandfalls.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

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

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 helpful 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 Grandfalls:

Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for Grandfalls. If you can help, please contact us through our Feedback Page.

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

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 location has been supplied by the Geographic Names Information System - which is maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). While these values should be definitive, we found that accuracy can vary and you should double-check the location if accuracy is required.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Grandfalls) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Grandfalls. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 31.3404, Longitude: -102.8544       In this case, the coordinates for Grandfalls have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<4>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.
<5>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 Grandfalls, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.




 

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In closing, please keep in mind that we can not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of the information on this website, so use with care. We encourage you to double-check the information that is critical to you.

If you've found an error or have additional information that you would like to share, please don't hesitate to write: Click here to contact us.

This page was last modified/updated: 29 Apr 2025