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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 McCook (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 McCook. 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 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.

McCook is located in Hidalgo 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 Hidalgo County: Brooks, Cameron, Kenedy, Starr & Willacy.

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

  • Hidalgo County     (The home county of McCook)
    • The following are listed by their distance from McCook, with the one closest to McCook listed first.
    • Monte Christo ‑ Historic
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Monte Christo is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Monte Christo
    • Citrus City
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
      • Citrus City is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Citrus City
    • Laguna Seca
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
    • Aloha Village
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
      • Aloha Village is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Aloha Village
      • Aloha Village has also been known as:
      • Aloha Village Colonia
    • Alton North
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
    • Alton
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
      • Alton is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Alton
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 18,785 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Alton <1>
    • Doffing
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
      • Doffing is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Doffing
    • West Sharyland
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the south)
      • West Sharyland is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for West Sharyland
    • Faysville
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
    • La Homa
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
      • La Homa is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Homa
    • Palmhurst
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
      • Palmhurst is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Palmhurst
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,719 people
    • Seminary Village
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Seminary Village is located in Hidalgo County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Seminary Village
      • Seminary Village has also been known as:
      • Seminary Village Colonia
  • Starr County
  • Willacy County

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

Cemeteries Near McCook ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of McCook.

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

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

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

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

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

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 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 McCook:

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>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- McCook) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<3>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.
<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 McCook, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.