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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Texas >> Reeves County >> Hermosa >> 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 Hermosa (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 Hermosa. 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 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.

Hermosa is located in Reeves 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 Reeves County: Eddy (NM), Culberson, Jeff Davis, Loving, Pecos & Ward.

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

  • Reeves County     (The home county of Hermosa)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Hermosa, with the one closest to Hermosa listed first.
    • Lindsay
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
      • Lindsay is located in Reeves County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lindsay
    • Pecos
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
      • Pecos is located in Reeves County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pecos
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 10,488 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Pecos <1>
    • Toyah
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Verhalen
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
    • Arno
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
      • Arno is located in Reeves County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arno
    • Saragosa
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
    • Balmorhea
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
    • San Martine
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
      • San Martine is located in Reeves County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for San Martine
  • Loving County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Hermosa, with the one closest to Hermosa listed first.
    • Mentone
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
    • Woody ‑ Historic
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
      • Woody is located in Loving County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Woody
  • Ward County
    • Barstow
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)

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

Cemeteries Near Hermosa ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Hermosa.

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

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

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

  • Mt. Evergreen Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Fairview Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fairview Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Fairview Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located in Pecos.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #3527 <2>
  • Toyah Old Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Mexican Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Dean Memorial Park
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
  • Santa Rosa Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
  • Toyah New Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
  • Barstow Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Barstow Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Barstow Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located 2 miles [3.2 km]<3> to the northwest of Barstow.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2262 <2>
  • Lara Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
  • Balmorhea Cemetery
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)
  • Brogade Cemetery
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the south)

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 in 1895, Hermosa had railroad service and no post office.

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

  • Pecos
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
    • Pecos is located in Reeves County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pecos
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 10,488 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Pecos <1>
  • Toyah
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Barstow
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Arno
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
    • Arno is located in Reeves County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arno
  • Riverton
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
    • Riverton is located in Reeves County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Riverton
  • San Martine
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
    • San Martine is located in Reeves County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for San Martine

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

Newspapers Published in Hermosa ...

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 27 newspapers that have been published in the area around Hermosa.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Hermosa, there are papers which were published within 15 miles [24.1 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Hermosa.

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 Hermosa:

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 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Hermosa) 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 Hermosa, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.