Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

So far, we found very little information about Santo Tomas. The little that we've found leads us believe that the community is historic.<1>

We've added Santo Tomas to our Gazetteer with the hope that we can develop more information. If you can help us with Santo Tomas, please Contact Us.

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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 Santo Tomas (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 Santo Tomas. 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 northeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals were in the next county to the east. 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 east 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.

Although our information shows that the community of Santo Tomas is historic, it would have been located within present day Webb County.

To see how the shape of Texas' counties 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 Santo Tomas. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Santo Tomas:

• Webb County     (The home county of Santo Tomas)
  • The following are listed by their distance from Santo Tomas, with the one closest to Santo Tomas listed first.
  • Islitas ‑ Historic
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Islitas have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Islitas
    • Islitas is located in Webb County
  • Ranchos Penitas West
    (9 miles [14.5 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Ranchos Penitas West have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Ranchos Penitas West
    • Ranchos Penitas West is located in Webb County
    • Ranchos Penitas West has also been known as:
    • Ranchos Penitas West Colonia
  • Botines
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the east)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Botines have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Botines
    • Botines is located in Webb County
  • Laredo
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Laredo
    • Laredo is located in Webb County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 263,640 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Laredo <3>
  • Larga Vista
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Larga Vista have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Larga Vista
    • Larga Vista is located in Webb County
    • Larga Vista has also been known as:
    • Larga Vista Colonia
  • Laredo Ranchettes
    (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Laredo Ranchettes have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Laredo Ranchettes
    • Laredo Ranchettes is located in Webb County
  • La Presa
    (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for La Presa have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for La Presa
    • La Presa is located in Webb County
    • La Presa has also been known as:
    • La Presa Colonia
  • Rio Bravo
    (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Rio Bravo
    • Rio Bravo is located in Webb County
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 4,608 people
    • Rio Bravo has also been known as:
    • Rio Bravo Colonia

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

Newspapers Published in Santo Tomas ...

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 Santo Tomas.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Santo Tomas, there are papers which were published within 22 miles [35.4 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Santo Tomas.

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 professional and volunteer 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 Santo Tomas:

• Websites specific to Texas
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails
  • Website for the //www.tsl.texas.gov/

• Pages specific to Webb County
  • Jump to Cyndi's List
  • Jump to Family Search
  • Jump to Genealogy Trails

• Cemetery Information and Directories for Texas
  • Cemetery Junction: Cemeteries of Texas
  • Cyndi's List
  • Cemeteries of Texas
  • Cemeteries of Webb County
  • FamilySearch.org: Cemeteries of Texas
  • Find-A-Grave: Home Page
  • Interment.net
  • Cemeteries of Texas
  • Cemeteries of Webb County

Cemeteries Near Santo Tomas ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Santo Tomas.

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.

If you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our selection of Genealogy Websites (see below).

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

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

• Darwin Cemetery
  (2 miles [3.2 km] to the south)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Darwin Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Darwin Cemetery
• Dolores Cemetery
  (3 miles [4.8 km] to the south)
  • The Dolores Cemetery has also been known as:
  • Dolores Ranch Cemetery
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Dolores Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #3263 <5>
• Tordillo Cemetery
  (8 miles [12.9 km] to the east)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Tordillo Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Tordillo Cemetery
• Calvary Catholic Cemetery
  (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
  • 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 our Gazetteer entry for the Calvary Catholic Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #1966533 <5>
• City Cemetery
  (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
  • 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 our Gazetteer entry for the City Cemetery
  • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #1186555 <5>
• Cactus Cemetery
  (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for the Cactus Cemetery have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for the Cactus Cemetery

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.

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

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

• Webb
  (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Webb have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Webb
  • Webb is located in Webb County
• Laredo
  (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Laredo
  • Laredo is located in Webb County
  • Population from the 2020 Census: 263,640 people
  • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Laredo <3>
• Cactus
  (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northeast)
  • Note: The GPS coordinates that we are using for Cactus have been provided by the GNIS.<2> The coordinates still need to be verified.
  • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cactus
  • Cactus is located in Webb County

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

Off-the-Road Links ...

The official website for Webb County: www.webbcounty.com/

The official website for State of Texas: https://texas.gov/