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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 Lyford (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 Lyford. 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 and 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.

Lyford is located in Willacy 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 Willacy County: Cameron, Hidalgo & Kenedy.

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

  • Willacy County     (The home county of Lyford)
  • Cameron County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Lyford, with the one closest to Lyford listed first.
    • Yznaga
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the south)
      • Yznaga is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Yznaga
    • Tierra Bonita
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
      • Tierra Bonita is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tierra Bonita
      • Tierra Bonita has also been known as:
      • Tierra Bonita Colonia
    • Grand Acres
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
      • Grand Acres is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grand Acres
    • Santa Rosa
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
    • Combes
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the south)
      • Combes is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Combes
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 3,037 people
      • Combes has also been known as:
      • Combes Colonia
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Combes <1>
    • Lasana
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
      • Lasana is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lasana
      • Lasana has also been known as:
      • Lasana Colonia
    • Primera
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
      • Primera is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Primera
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 5,271 people
    • Las Palmas - Juarez
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
      • Las Palmas - Juarez is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Las Palmas - Juarez
    • Palm Valley
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
    • Ratamosa
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
      • Ratamosa is located in Cameron County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ratamosa
      • Ratamosa has also been known as:
      • Ratamosa Colonia
    • Harlingen
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
    • La Feria North
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
    • Windsong Village
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
      • 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
  • Hidalgo County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Lyford, with the one closest to Lyford listed first.
    • La Villa
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
      • La Villa is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Villa
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,935 people
    • Monte Alto
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
    • Edcouch
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Elsa
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
      • Elsa is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Elsa
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 7,120 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Elsa <1>
    • Hargill
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
    • Heidelberg
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
      • Heidelberg is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Heidelberg
    • Indian Hills
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
    • Mila Doce
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Mila Doce is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mila Doce
    • La Blanca
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Olivarez
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the southwest)
      • Olivarez is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Olivarez
    • Mercedes
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
    • San Carlos
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
      • San Carlos is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for San Carlos
    • Doolittle
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)

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

Cemeteries Near Lyford ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Lyford.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Lyford, with the one closest to Lyford 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 Lyford in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Lyford.

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

  • Santa Maria
    (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
  • Los Angeles
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Los Angeles is located in Hidalgo County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Los Angeles

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Lyford ...

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 15 newspapers that have been published in the area around Lyford.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Lyford. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Lyford and those printed in the larger area surrounding Lyford.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 17 miles [27.4 km]<3> of Lyford.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first turn to 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 Lyford:

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 drawn from Point A (ie- Lyford) 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 Lyford, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.