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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 Palmer (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 Palmer. 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 and doctors 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.

Palmer is located in Ellis 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 Ellis County: Dallas, Henderson, Hill, Johnson, Kaufman, Navarro & Tarrant.

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

  • Ellis County     (The home county of Palmer)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Palmer, with the one closest to Palmer listed first.
    • Garrett
      (4 miles [6.4 km] to the south)
      • Garrett is located in Ellis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Garrett
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 891 people
    • Crisp
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Boyce
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
    • Bristol
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
    • Ike
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the west)
    • Pecan Hill
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)
      • Pecan Hill is located in Ellis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pecan Hill
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 714 people
    • Ennis
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
    • Walnut Springs
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the northeast)
      • Walnut Springs is located in Ellis County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Walnut Springs
    • Telico
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Sterrett
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
    • Waxahachie
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the west)
    • Bardwell
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
    • Howard
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Dallas County
  • Henderson County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Palmer, with the one closest to Palmer listed first.
    • Seven Points
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
    • Tool
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
      • Tool is located in Henderson County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tool
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,335 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Tool <1>
  • Hill County
  • Johnson County
  • Kaufman County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Palmer, with the one closest to Palmer listed first.
    • Rosser
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the east)
    • Cottonwood
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the east)
      • Cottonwood is located in Kaufman County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cottonwood
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 209 people
    • Scurry
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the east)
    • Grays Prairie
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
      • Grays Prairie is located in Kaufman County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grays Prairie
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 388 people
    • Crandall
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
    • Styx
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
    • Oak Grove
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
      • Oak Grove is located in Kaufman County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oak Grove
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 704 people
    • Stubbs
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
    • Kaufman
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
    • Lone Star
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
      • Lone Star is located in Kaufman County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lone Star
    • Talty
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
      • Talty is located in Kaufman County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Talty
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,883 people
    • Forney
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Post Oak Bend City
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
      • Post Oak Bend City is located in Kaufman County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Post Oak Bend City
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 626 people
  • Navarro County

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

Cemeteries Near Palmer ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Palmer.

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

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

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

  • Lucille Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the east)
  • Palmer Cemetery
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Prude Hyde Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
  • Smith Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the west)
  • Crisp Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
  • Norman Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
  • Douglas Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
  • Bluff Springs Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Union Hill Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Hefley Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Graves Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Myrtle Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the south)
  • Continue List   (154 more) ...
    • Old Cemetery
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
    • Ferris Park Cemetery
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the north)
    • Bell Chapel Cemetery
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the northwest)

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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Palmer had a population of 250 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Palmer had a population of 2,169 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in Palmer ...

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 224 newspapers that have been published in the area around Palmer.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Palmer, there are papers which were published within 28 miles [45.1 km]<2>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Palmer.

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 Palmer:

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 '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- Palmer) 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 Palmer, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.