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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

Although we found mention of Old Place Windmills during our research, we have little information about it.<1> Given the context of how Old Place Windmills was mentioned, we believe that it was a community rather than a locale or some type of landmark. We have done a cursory search and if it was a community, we haven't been able to find any evidence that it still exists..

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 Old Place Windmills (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 Old Place Windmills. 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 and doctors 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.

Old Place Windmills is located in Andrews 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 Andrews County: Lea (NM), Ector, Gaines, Martin, Midland & Winkler.

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

  • Andrews County     (The home county of Old Place Windmills)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Old Place Windmills, with the one closest to Old Place Windmills listed first.
    • Andrews
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
    • Coyote Corner
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Note: We haven't been able to verify our GPS coordinates for Coyote Corner. Although the coordinates have been estimated, they should be in the vicinity.<3>
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Coyote Corner
      • Coyote Corner is located in Andrews County
    • Shafter Lake ‑ Historic
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Shafter Lake have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Shafter Lake
      • Shafter Lake is located in Andrews County
    • Florey
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Florey
      • Florey is located in Andrews County
    • Frankel City ‑ Historic
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Frankel City have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Frankel City
      • Frankel City is located in Andrews County
  • Ector County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Old Place Windmills, with the one closest to Old Place Windmills listed first.
    • Scharbauer City
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Scharbauer City have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Scharbauer City
      • Scharbauer City is located in Ector County
    • Goldsmith
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Goldsmith have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Goldsmith
      • Goldsmith is located in Ector County
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 277 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Goldsmith <2>
    • Gardendale
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Notrees
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the southwest)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Notrees have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Notrees
      • Notrees is located in Ector County
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Notrees <2>
    • West Odessa
      (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for West Odessa have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for West Odessa
      • West Odessa is located in Ector County
    • Odessa
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
    • Penwell
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the south)
      • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Penwell have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Penwell
      • Penwell is located in Ector County
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Penwell <2>
  • Midland County
    • Midland
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)

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

Cemeteries Near Old Place Windmills ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Old Place Windmills.

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 Old Place Windmills covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

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

  • Andrews West Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Andrews West Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Andrews West Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the southwest of Andrews.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2132550 <5>
  • Andrews Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Andrews Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Andrews Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the southwest of Andrews.
    • The Andrews Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Andrews County Cemetery
    • Old Andrews Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #240561 <5>
  • Andrews North Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the north)
  • Shafter Lake Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
  • American Heritage Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the southeast)
  • Los Angeles Gardens Cemetery
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
  • Odessa Cemetery
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
  • Sunset Memorial Gardens
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Sunset Memorial Gardens
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Sunset Memorial Gardens have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Rose Hill Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
  • Rest Haven Cemetery
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Rest Haven Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Rest Haven Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Valhalla Mausoleum
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Valhalla Mausoleum
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Valhalla Mausoleum have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Fairview Cemetery
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Fairview Cemetery
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Fairview Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<4> 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.<6>

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

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

  • Odessa
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
  • Warfield
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Warfield have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Warfield
    • Warfield is located in Midland County
  • Douro
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Douro have been provided by the GNIS.<4> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Douro
    • Douro is located in Ector County
  • Midland
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)

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

Newspapers Published in Old Place Windmills ...

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 32 newspapers that have been published in the area around Old Place Windmills.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Old Place Windmills, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<7>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Old Place Windmills.

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 Old Place Windmills:

The official website for Andrews County: www.co.andrews.tx.us/

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

Footnotes ...

<1>If we encounter the name of what might be a community, our methodology is to add that name to our Gazetteer. For example, we might find a sentence like "He went south past Old Place Windmills and then turned east". While Old Place Windmills could be some kind of landmark, we think that it's more likely to be a community. We've added Old Place Windmills as a placeholder with the hope that we'll be able to add more information in the future.

Just as a reminder: Our definition of a community is rather broad and includes those places (or areas) where several families lived and had a name which identified that place. For example, you might hear somebody say that they are going over to Bird Creek to see Pete ... Bird Creek is just a gas station and a couple of homes at the crossroads. While it might not be on the map, everybody in the area knows it by that name.

Places of interest include buildings at a crossroad, several families clustered in a hollow or maybe the location of a way station. It also includes places like mines, lumber camps, ferry crossings, etc. The community might still exist, is now gone or only existed for just a short period of time.

Also keep in mind that Old Place Windmills could have been on the original document by mistake, misspelled, the original/alternate name of a community that we've listed elsewhere or was placed in the wrong county. Sometimes a post office or train station would have a different name than the community where it's located, so two names might be referring to the same community - we're working to straighten it all out.

Since confusion between counties is common, we searched and weren't able to find another Texas community named Old Place Windmills.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>An 'estimated' location is one where we have been given GPS coordinates, but are unable to verify the accuracy of those coordinates. That said, we have some confidence that we have placed the marker near the actual location. A typical reason for being unable to verify a location is that it might be on private property or maybe historic and gone without an obvious trace.
<4>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.
<5>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.
<6>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 Old Place Windmills, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<7>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 from Point A (ie- Old Place Windmills) to Point B.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Old Place Windmills. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 32.1743, Longitude: -102.5338       In this case, the coordinates for Old Place Windmills have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).




 

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This page was last modified/updated: 29 Apr 2025