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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 Shamrock (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 Shamrock. 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 doctors 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.

Shamrock is located in Wheeler 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 Wheeler County: Beckham (OK), Roger Mills (OK), Collingsworth, Gray & Hemphill.

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

  • Wheeler County     (The home county of Shamrock)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Shamrock, with the one closest to Shamrock listed first.
    • Twitty
      (6 miles [9.7 km] to the north)
      • Twitty is located in Wheeler County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Twitty
    • Magic City
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
      • Magic City is located in Wheeler County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Magic City
    • Wheeler
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the north)
    • Mobeetie
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)
    • Briscoe
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • Allison
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
    • Zybach ‑ Historic
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
      • Zybach is located in Wheeler County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Zybach
  • Collingsworth County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Shamrock, with the one closest to Shamrock listed first.
    • Samnorwood
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
    • Quail
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
    • Wellington
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
  • Gray County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Shamrock, with the one closest to Shamrock listed first.
    • McLean
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
    • Alanreed
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the west)
  • Beckham County (OK)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Shamrock, with the one closest to Shamrock listed first.
    • Texola
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
      • Texola is located in Beckham County (OK)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Texola
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 34 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Texola <1>
    • Erick
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
      • Erick is located in Beckham County (OK)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Erick
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 976 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Erick <1>
    • Mayfield
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northeast)
    • Sweetwater
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
  • Harmon County (OK)
    • Vinson
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southeast)

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

Cemeteries Near Shamrock ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Shamrock.

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

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

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

  • Lela Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the west)
  • Center Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the northeast)
  • Pakan Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Dozier Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
  • Plymouth Cemetery
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the south)
  • Texola Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the east)
  • Wheeler Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the north)
  • Kelton Cemetery
    (15 miles [24.1 km] to the northeast)
  • Needwood Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southeast)
  • Vannerson Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southeast)
  • Rock Cemetery
    (19 miles [30.6 km] to the northeast)
  • Davis Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the east)
  • Continue List   (22 more) ...
    • Hillcrest Cemetery
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the west)
    • Mayfield Cemetery
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
    • Quail Cemetery
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the south)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Quail Cemetery
      • To give a relative sense of its location, the Quail Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located 11 miles [17.7 km]<3> to the northwest of Wellington.
      • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #6220 <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.<4>

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

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

  • Aberdeen
    (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southeast)
    • Aberdeen is located in Collingsworth County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Aberdeen
  • Sweetwater
    (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
  • Wellington
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
  • Mobeetie
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the northwest)

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

Newspapers Published in Shamrock ...

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 11 newspapers that have been published in the area around Shamrock.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Shamrock, there are papers which were published within 24 miles [38.6 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Shamrock.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first turn to 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 Shamrock:

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 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Shamrock) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<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 Shamrock, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.