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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 La Feria (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 La Feria. 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 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.

La Feria is located in Cameron 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 Cameron County: Hidalgo & Willacy.

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

  • Cameron County     (The home county of La Feria)
    • The following are listed by their distance from La Feria, with the one closest to La Feria listed first.
    • La Feria North
      (Less than 2 miles to the north)
    • Windsong Village
      (Less than 2 miles to the north)
      • Windsong Village is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Windsong Village
      • Windsong Village has also been known as:
      • Windsong Village Colonia
    • North La Feria Village
      (Less than 2 miles to the west)
      • North La Feria Village is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for North La Feria Village
      • North La Feria Village has also been known as:
      • North La Feria Village Colonia
    • Arroyo Alto
      (Less than 2 miles to the south)
      • Arroyo Alto is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arroyo Alto
    • Solis
      (Less than 2 miles to the west)
      • Solis is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Solis
      • Solis has also been known as:
      • Solis Colonia
    • Bixby
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the west)
    • Ratamosa
      (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northwest)
      • Ratamosa is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ratamosa
      • Ratamosa has also been known as:
      • Ratamosa Colonia
    • Grand Acres
      (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
      • Grand Acres is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grand Acres
    • Palm Valley
      (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
    • Bluetown - Iglesia Antigua
      (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
    • Bluetown
      (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
    • Longoria Townsite
      (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
      • Longoria Townsite is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Longoria Townsite
      • Longoria Townsite has also been known as:
      • Longoria Townsite Colonia
    • Santa Maria
      (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
  • Hidalgo County
    • The following are listed by their distance from La Feria, with the one closest to La Feria listed first.
    • Heidelberg
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Heidelberg is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Heidelberg
    • Mercedes
      (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
    • Indian Hills
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Relampago
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Relampago is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Relampago
    • Rio Rico
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Mila Doce
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Mila Doce is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mila Doce
    • Progreso
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Llano Grande
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
      • Llano Grande is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Llano Grande
    • Progreso Lakes
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Progreso Lakes is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Progreso Lakes
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 270 people
    • Villa Verde
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
      • Villa Verde is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Villa Verde
      • Villa Verde has also been known as:
      • Villa Verde Colonia
    • Weslaco
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
    • La Villa
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
      • La Villa is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Villa
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,935 people
    • Olivarez
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Olivarez is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Olivarez
  • Willacy County

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

Cemeteries Near La Feria ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of La Feria.

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 La Feria - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

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>

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

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of La Feria ...

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 14 newspapers that have been published in the area around La Feria.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of La Feria. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of La Feria and those printed in the larger area surrounding La Feria.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 10 miles [16.1 km]<3> of La Feria.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we begin 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 La Feria:

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