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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 Orvil (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 Orvil. 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.

Orvil is located in Webb 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 Webb County: Dimmit, Duval, Jim Hogg, La Salle, Maverick & Zapata.

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

  • Webb County     (The home county of Orvil)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Orvil, with the one closest to Orvil listed first.
    • Ranchos Penitas West
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the west)
      • Ranchos Penitas West is located in Webb County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ranchos Penitas West
      • Ranchos Penitas West has also been known as:
      • Ranchos Penitas West Colonia
    • Botines
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
      • Botines is located in Webb County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Botines
    • Laredo
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
    • Larga Vista
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
      • Larga Vista is located in Webb County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Larga Vista
      • Larga Vista has also been known as:
      • Larga Vista Colonia
    • Islitas ‑ Historic
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
      • Islitas is located in Webb County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Islitas
    • Laredo Ranchettes
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the southeast)
      • Laredo Ranchettes is located in Webb County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Laredo Ranchettes
    • Regency Village
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
      • Regency Village is located in Webb County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Regency Village
      • Regency Village has also been known as:
      • Regency Village Colonia
    • La Presa
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
      • La Presa is located in Webb County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Presa
      • La Presa has also been known as:
      • La Presa Colonia
    • Pescadito ‑ Historic
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Pescadito is located in Webb County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pescadito
    • Ranchitos Las Lomas
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
      • Ranchitos Las Lomas is located in Webb County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ranchitos Las Lomas
    • Santo Tomas ‑ Historic
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Santo Tomas is located in Webb County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Santo Tomas
    • Rio Bravo
      (18 miles [29 km] to the south)
      • Rio Bravo is located in Webb County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rio Bravo
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 4,608 people
      • Rio Bravo has also been known as:
      • Rio Bravo Colonia
    • El Cenizo
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the south)
      • El Cenizo is located in Webb County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for El Cenizo
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 3,092 people
  • La Salle County
    • Encinal
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)

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

Cemeteries Near Orvil ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Orvil.

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

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

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

  • Calvary Catholic Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Calvary Catholic Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Calvary Catholic Cemetery is a very large cemetery that is located in Laredo.
    • The Calvary Catholic Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Catholic Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #1966533 <2>
  • City Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for City Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the City Cemetery is a very large cemetery that is located in Laredo.
    • The City Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Laredo City Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #1186555 <2>
  • Tordillo Cemetery
    (10 miles [16.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Dolores Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
  • Darwin Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the west)
  • Cactus Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
  • Dolores Cemetery
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the south)
  • Becerra Cemetery
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
  • Encinal Cemetery
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Encinal Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Encinal Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the east of Encinal.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2139133 <2>

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 Orvil in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Orvil.

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

  • Laredo
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
  • Webb
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the north)
    • Webb is located in Webb County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Webb
  • Pescadito ‑ Historic
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Pescadito is located in Webb County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pescadito
  • Cactus
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the north)
    • Cactus is located in Webb County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cactus
  • Aguilares
    (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Aguilares is located in Webb County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Aguilares
  • Encinal
    (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)

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

Newspapers Published in Orvil ...

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 Orvil.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Orvil, there are papers which were published within 9 miles [14.5 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Orvil.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we start 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 Orvil:

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 Orvil, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>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- Orvil) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.