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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 Orient (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 Orient. 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 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.

Orient is located in Nolan 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 Nolan County: Coke, Fisher, Jones, Mitchell, Runnels, Scurry & Taylor.

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

  • Nolan County     (The home county of Orient)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Orient, with the one closest to Orient listed first.
    • Sweetwater
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the south)
    • Avenger Village
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
      • Avenger Village is located in Nolan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Avenger Village
    • Roscoe
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Wastella ‑ Historic
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the west)
      • Wastella is located in Nolan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Wastella
    • Nolan
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southeast)
    • Maryneal
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the south)
    • Hylton
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
      • Hylton is located in Nolan County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hylton
  • Coke County
    • Blackwell
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
  • Fisher County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Orient, with the one closest to Orient listed first.
    • Capitola
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northwest)
      • Capitola is located in Fisher County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Capitola
    • Claytonville
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
      • Claytonville is located in Fisher County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Claytonville
    • Roby
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
    • Sylvester
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Royston
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
      • Royston is located in Fisher County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Royston
    • Hobbs
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
      • Hobbs is located in Fisher County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hobbs
    • McCaulley
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northeast)
      • McCaulley is located in Fisher County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for McCaulley
    • Rotan
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
    • Hamlin
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Jones County
    • Stith
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
      • Stith is located in Jones County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Stith
  • Mitchell County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Orient, with the one closest to Orient listed first.
    • Loraine
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
    • Buford
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
      • Buford is located in Mitchell County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Buford
    • Colorado City
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the west)
  • Scurry County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Orient, with the one closest to Orient listed first.
    • Hermleigh
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
    • Dunn
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)
  • Taylor County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Orient, with the one closest to Orient listed first.
    • Trent
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
    • Merkel
      (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
    • Mount Pleasant
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
      • Mount Pleasant is located in Taylor County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mount Pleasant

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

Cemeteries Near Orient ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Orient.

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

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

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

  • Sweetwater Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
  • Garden of memories Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southeast)
  • Palava Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Roscoe Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Roscoe Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Roscoe Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the northeast of Roscoe.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #6455 <2>
  • Coffee Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
  • Round Mountain Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
  • Claytonville Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the northwest)
  • Champion Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
  • Sylvester Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Sardis Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
  • Nolan Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
  • Trent Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
  • Continue List   (32 more) ...
    • Roby Cemetery
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the north)
    • Wallace Cemetery
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southwest)
    • Slater Chapel Cemetery
      (18 miles [29 km] to the southeast)

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.<3>

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

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

  • Sweetwater
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the south)
  • Roscoe
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Eskota
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
    • Eskota is located in Fisher County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Eskota
  • Claytonville
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
    • Claytonville is located in Fisher County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Claytonville
  • Trent
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
  • Roby
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the north)
  • Loraine
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the west)
  • Fisher
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
    • Fisher is located in Fisher County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fisher
  • Hobbs
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
    • Hobbs is located in Fisher County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hobbs
  • Merkel
    (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
  • Neinda
    (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Neinda is located in Jones County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Neinda
  • Hylton
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Hylton is located in Nolan County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hylton
  • Hitson
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
    • Hitson is located in Fisher County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hitson

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

Newspapers Published in Orient ...

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 24 newspapers that have been published in the area around Orient.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Orient, there are papers which were published within 27 miles [43.5 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Orient.

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 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 Orient:

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>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 Orient, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Orient) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.