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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 Pettit (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 Pettit. 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 southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Pettit is located in Hockley 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 Hockley County: Bailey, Cochran, Hale, Lamb, Lubbock, Lynn, Terry & Yoakum.

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

  • Hockley County     (The home county of Pettit)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Pettit, with the one closest to Pettit listed first.
    • Pep
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the north)
    • Whitharral
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the east)
    • Levelland
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Opdyke West
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
      • Opdyke West is located in Hockley County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Opdyke West
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 196 people
    • Sundown
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the south)
    • Anton
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
      • Anton is located in Hockley County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Anton
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,089 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Anton <1>
    • Smyer
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
    • Roundup
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the east)
      • Roundup is located in Hockley County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Roundup
    • Lockettville
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the southeast)
      • Lockettville is located in Hockley County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lockettville
    • Ropesville
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)
  • Bailey County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Pettit, with the one closest to Pettit listed first.
    • Bula
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
    • Enochs
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northwest)
    • Maple
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
  • Cochran County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Pettit, with the one closest to Pettit listed first.
    • Whiteface
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Morton
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the west)
    • Bledsoe
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)
  • Lamb County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Pettit, with the one closest to Pettit listed first.
    • Littlefield
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
    • Amherst
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
    • Sudan
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • Spade
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northeast)
      • Spade is located in Lamb County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Spade
    • Fieldton
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
  • Lubbock County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Pettit, with the one closest to Pettit listed first.
    • Reese Village
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
      • Reese Village is located in Lubbock County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Reese Village
    • Shallowater
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
  • Terry County
    • Meadow
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)

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

Cemeteries Near Pettit ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Pettit.

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

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

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

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

Newspapers Published in Pettit ...

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 17 newspapers that have been published in the area around Pettit.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Pettit, there are papers which were published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Pettit.

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 either 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 Pettit:

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>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- Pettit) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.