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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 Riviera Beach (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 Riviera Beach. 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.

Name Variations for Riviera Beach ...

When searching records, keep in mind that names and their spelling can change over time. Our sources include documents like maps, railroad schedules, Travel, Express and Shipping Guides. Many of these documents date from the 1800's and it's common to find spelling differences.

For example, a typical abbreviation for Riviera Beach: Riviera Bch.

You might be interested in other communities that are also named Riviera Beach. More information can be found on our Tidbits & Trivia Page for Riviera Beach.

If you have information about these names (such as the reason for the change, date of change, the origin of the name), please Contact Us.

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 doctors and 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.

Riviera Beach is located in Kleberg 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 Kleberg County: Brooks, Jim Wells, Kenedy & Nueces.

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

  • Kleberg County     (The home county of Riviera Beach)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Riviera Beach, with the one closest to Riviera Beach listed first.
    • Vattmannville
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Vattmannville is located in Kleberg County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Vattmannville
    • Riviera
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
    • Kingsville
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
  • Brooks County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Riviera Beach, with the one closest to Riviera Beach listed first.
    • Flowella
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
      • Flowella is located in Brooks County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Flowella
    • Airport Road Addition
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
    • Falfurrias
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
    • Cantu Addition
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
      • Cantu Addition is located in Brooks County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cantu Addition
  • Jim Wells County
    • Premont
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)
  • Kenedy County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Riviera Beach, with the one closest to Riviera Beach listed first.
    • Sarita
      (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Armstrong
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the south)
      • Armstrong is located in Kenedy County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Armstrong
  • Nueces County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Riviera Beach, with the one closest to Riviera Beach listed first.
    • Bishop
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Chapman Ranch
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
    • Driscoll
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
    • Petronila
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
      • Petronila is located in Nueces County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Petronila
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 112 people
    • Tierra Grande
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
      • Tierra Grande is located in Nueces County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tierra Grande
    • La Paloma - Lost Creek
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)

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

Cemeteries Near Riviera Beach ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Riviera Beach.

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 Riviera Beach - one of the links might be able to help.

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

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

  • Vattman Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Sarita Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Riviera Cemetery
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the west)
  • Canales Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the west)
  • Rest Haven Memorial Park
    (18 miles [29 km] to the northwest)
  • Chamberlain Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Chamberlain Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Chamberlain Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the southwest of Kingsville.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2864 <2>
  • St. Gertrudis Memorial Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
  • Santa Gertrudis Memorial Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
  • Santo Gertrudis Memorial Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northwest)
  • Restland Memory Park
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Restland Memory Park
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Restland Memory Park is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the southeast of Bishop.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #1969801 <2>
  • St. Paul Cemetery
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
  • Chapman Ranch Cemetery
    • The Chapman Ranch Cemetery is located on private property - be sure to secure permission before visiting.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Chapman Ranch Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #2878 <2>
  • Continue List   (5 more) ...
    • Flinn Cemetery
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • Perez Cemetery
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)
    • Pedro Garza Zamora Cemetery
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the west)

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

  • Driscoll
    (26 miles [41.8 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 Riviera Beach. See our List of 1890's Communities around Riviera Beach.

Newspapers Published in Riviera Beach ...

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 21 newspapers that have been published in the area around Riviera Beach.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Riviera Beach, there are papers which were published within 29 miles [46.7 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Riviera Beach.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we like to 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 Riviera Beach:

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 Riviera Beach, 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 drawn from Point A (ie- Riviera Beach) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.